


The Secret Coding Of The Soul

by orphan_account



Series: The Heart And Other Software Deviations [1]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gen, Pseudonyms, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:14:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8507470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Antal Edwin Janós: genius, vigillante, widower, single father. Likes building things, proving his colleagues wrong and, surprisingly, most things about his life.Then his best friend Yinsen gets himself kidnapped by a terrorist group, again. Only these time they're aliens.  It's right about then that it all goes to shit.   Or, in a world where Soulmates are a thing and the Unmarked are pariahs, Tony Stark's life changes accordingly, for better or worse





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is planned ten chapters so far. Many many thanks to the wonderful songlordsbug, without whom this wouldn't exist.

 

 

**AVENGERS INITIATIVE**

  
DRAFT FOR: CAPT. Rogers, Steven G.

[ TO BE EDITED ACCORDING TO THE CLEARANCE LEVEL OF CAPT. Rogers, Steven G. ]

 

SUBJECT:

Janós, Antal Edwin.

[SEE Stark, Anthony E. SEE Stark, C. Howard. SEE Dir. Carter, E. Margaret. SEE Jarvis, L Ana. SEE Jarvis S. Edwin.

SEE Project BLANK PAGE]

 

IRON MAN. SEE Afghanistan, 1991. SEE Stane, Obidiah. SEE Stark, C Howard. SEE Yinsen, F. Ho.

NATIONALITY: British-Hungarian.

AGE: 43

OCCUPATION:

Engineering Mechanics and Robotics Professor at Columbia University, NY.

Employee and co-creator of HARDWARE ENERGY AND ROBOTIC TECHNOLOGIES ENTERPRISES. SEE H.E.A.R.T- E. SEE, Yinsen, F. Ho.

IRON MAN

Consultant for Strategic Homeland Intervention E L D

  
ABILITIES:

Doctorate in Mechanics, Robotics and Physics.

Iron Man Armor SEE Iron Man SEE Yinsen, F. Ho

 

CIVIL STATE:

Orphaned. SEE János, Laszlo S. SEE János L. Annet.

Widowed. SEE Mary Fitzpatrick. SEE Project Bones.

Father of: Péter Benjamin János. SEE Mary Fitzpatrick.

[Brother to: János, B. Jakab. SEE Winter Soldier]

  
SOULMARK:

Classified Information

[No Words or evidence of bond. Highly Irregular.]

[SEE Project INSIGHT. SEE Tesseract. SEE Project BLANK PAGE ]

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION:

High genius level intellect. Mediocre social skills, exceptional showmanship. Displays compulsive behavior and self destructive tendencies, contained by family responsabilities Individualistic approach to problems in situations of crisis, does not work well with unknown entities. Does not respect orders. Signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and anxiety. Obsessive personality. Loyal to the point of recklessness, reckless to the point of self-destruction. Skewed sense of responsibility. Dubious sense of humor. *

CONCLUSION:

Will likely not accept outright invitation to AVENGERS INITIATIVE. Will most certainly become involved when circumstances demand it.

 

 

 

*Addendum, by Fury, L. Nicholas : "Does not know when to give up, that damn fucker. Try not to insult each other too much, Rogers."

 

 

 

 

_2012_

 

 

"Alright people, time's up. Put your pens down where I can see them."

All at once two dozen pens stopped stopped writing. Almost two dozen.

"Ha-ha, I see you there Mr Stone, put down that pen or your all nighters are going to waste. Unless those dark circles under your eyes are from an hangover?"

The classroom was filled with tired chuckles and the rustling of papers. The professor made his way through the rows of desks, accepting test papers and keeping a keen eyes on the pens. Students nudged past him, rubbing their eyes after three hours of scribbling their souls out.

"Remember, your assignment is due Friday and the practical evaluation is the same time next week, so --thank you Miss Pryde, Mr Strange -- if you want to give your robots a finishing touch you have until next Thursday to use the student workrooms. Only the student workshops. Until Friday."

Most of the students were already out of the door. The professor rolled his eyes and strode back to his table, righting a chair on the way and piling the exams on his desk. There was something discomfiting about a wide space that had echoed with many people breathing in tune suddenly falling silent, but he wasn't bothered, to busy making his own escape.

The halls of Columbia University were filled with students and faculty members coming and going, many of them carrying delicious-smelling coffee and looking far too tired for the grand architecture. He walked at a hurried pace through the campus, nodding at people that called out to him, clinging his glasses as he moved. Ben had bought them off a pharmacy years ago as a gag gift, but joke was on him because he actually had to wear them now.

"Professor Jarvis, do you have a moment?" One kid in a group of huddled students asked as he walked past.

He waved them off, "Nope, sorry, it's a Wednesday."

The kid's eyes widened. He shouted, "say hi to Peter for us!"

Professor János waved at them without turning around. "Will do."

It had rained the day before, so most people in the train station were lugging around useless umbrellas. His own was a short pocket-sized prototype he'd built, and he spent the bus ride fiddling with the handle, slapping it open and shut. The give was good, but not as fast as they could be, and the handle could have been shaped better. The idea was to create a force field to stop the descend of rain, but he could hardly go around Queen's with a force field umbrella, at least not while HEART didn't sell them, so he'd had to sew on the cloth. Of course, it was only malleable spandex with Keller fibers, but it would do in a crisis. Maybe if he reinforced with with a resistant alloy?

The fellow sitting beside him gave him the stink eye.

"See something you like?" he asked with a leer. The man glared and turned to the other side, possibly embarrassed or sick of the umbrella's snapping and opening. It didn't hamper his good mood in the least. Bus rides were great for brainstorming, and besides, it was a Wednesday. Wednesdays were Antal János' favorite day of the week.

He'd worked hard to make it so: moved schedules, piled classes on Thursdays and Mondays, bribed his colleagues with a mixture of assistance and his father's soufflé. Wednesday was his son's half day at school, though, so everything else obviously held second place.

Most everything else. The bus passed by only fast enough for him to get a glimpse, but --yeah, that was an old man, heavy with groceries, and those were three guys subtly quarreling him towards an alley.

Antal didn't wait for the bus to stop. It was far less heroic than it sounded, since it meant using his elbows to make a path and being cursed at, ignoring the bus driver and pressing e shiny red button to open the doors. He'd always wanted to press one of those.

He jumped out of the bus, not needing to turn around to hear the driver shouting something about hooligans these days. It wouldn't do for him to run, so he adopted the same fast pace of the businessmen around thoughtlessly, shoulders back and spine straight, chin lifted in a confident dare. His ripped jeans and the washed out t-shirt he was wearing under the fraying tweed jacket Ben had given him as a joke didn't do much for the look, but it was enough to help him become part of the crowd.

The robbers or whatever they were had chosen the back alley of a cheap motel. It was narrow enough that all it did to block the passerby's view was for him to move a dumpster beneath a trash chute in front of the opening. His wrists twitched, opening the suitcase only enough for the gauntlets and the helmet to cover him. This wasn't really an occasion for Iron Man to go all-out.

One of the guys looked behind, lifting his head slowly. Iron Man's shadow spread out on the filthy pavement, far thinner than he was, darkening the walls and the ground. There was a supermarket bag and a jar of honey abandoned by the wall, and he nearly tripped on a rolling can of beans. The other two were rummaging around the old man's pockets, one of them holding a knife to his papery jugular.

His father had had skin as thin, once. It would bruise easily, and give him terrible chilblains in winter.

"So, I'd say hands were I can see them, but I'm not actually a cop," and Ben had some sort of super sense that let him know if he used police lines, it was downright creepy, "so I'm going to tell you to be still and keep your hands were the are."

The guy with the wallet started to run. Shit move, with Antal right there, but convenient.

"Or you can do that," Antal conceded, and aimed. Not at him, but the patch of ground right in front of him. Not enough energy to kill the guy, obviously, just enough to send them against the wall and make sure he stayed there.

The second man jumped to help him buddy. Antal sent another blast of energy nearby but didn't hit hi . "Stay there

The last one, whose hand was holding the rusty knife, trembled. The old am trembled as well. It was possible that he was going into shock. It was possible that Antal was trembling as well, remembering another old man with surprised, glazed eyes--

Antal nodded when the terrified burglar began to lower it. "Yes, nice and slow."

"PEGGY, you know the drill."

"That I do, sir," she agreed, voice cool and poised.

The HUD screen, running calculations on everything from identifications his fellow alley cats (Johnson, F, Benedict L, Dahl, K. Louis D.) and the odds of someone walking in (14%, 16% in another five minutes when the nearby restaurant closed its doors), made the call.

"May I remind you that young Péter's school is closing its doors in ten minutes."

"I know, I know," he hissed. This would be one of those times when it'd be great for people to know his identity so he could fly away in a blaze of glory and fly to get his kid. But that had never been an option, not for him.

He walked over towards the old man (Frederick Gerald Johnson, 71, retired, had worked as a librarian for thirty seven years, one divorce and one buried wife, five kids and thirteen grandkids). "Mr. Johnson? Hi. It's Iron Man. Everything is going to be fine. Breathe with me. Yeah, feel my chest, no armor there, good idea. That's it, nice, in and out, just easy, you've doing this all your life. You've got it, yap, yes you have."

By the time the cops pulled the dumpster away, Mr. Johnson was breathing mostly okay and Peter had been waiting for two minutes. The cops gave him a wide berth, some nodding at him. Ben was talking on the com (HEART technology, radio and phone and gps all in one, Ben's idea and Antal'd design), and looked up as he got closer.

"Iron Man."

"Deputy Parker."

Ben's lips were pressed together. He was terrible at keeping his emotion's to himself, had the worst poker face in history. It was really worrying when Antal stopped to think about it, considering everything.

His brother in law, who was actually his dead wife's dead soulmate brother, looked at him with those kind eyes of his and said, "good job, Iron Man. He said, "well, if you've got it all figured out, Benny. Thanks a bunch, I'll give you the statement another time, yeah?" Probably around dinner. He hoped. Mr Johnson had had the right of it, doing mid week grocery shopping. Was there anything in the pantry? He didn't think there was anything in the pantry.

The cops were already bringing the cuffed evildoers inside the police car. "You're welcome to stay, but there's no need to stick around now."

Go get your kid, Antal, and don't make him wait anymore, Antal heard.

"You know, all in a day's work." Speaking of day's work, Antal had some tests to grade. He should do that before the end of term.

Eh. He'd do it after getting Peter. Probably.

"Hasta La Vista!" He waggled his fingers and turned around to make sure that Johnson was well in the hands of New York's finest. at here he was, huddling under a blanket and holding his bean can. He waved at him as well, but didn't stay longer in the alley. He didn't want to keep Peter waiting. Again.

He always said he understood. Antal worried that he really, actually did.

The barrier had actually been Yinsen's idea. All the best ideas were Yinsen's ideas, and this was one of his best ones. It was part of the suitcase's outer shell, and when one pressed a series of numbers on a surface in its side that did not in the least appear to be a screen, it created what Peter called 'The Great Secret Bubble'. It unfolded in a mastery of reflective surfaces and their most successful attempts at holographic one way mirrors, and didn't let anyone see more than what they would have seen if Antal were not in there, shucking off the armor and adjusting his jacket. It had been the main part of HEART and Iron Man's deal with the UN, and the force behind many vigilante's determination to keep their hidden identities.

It worked, enough that no one had targeted Antal Janós or his family so far except for disgruntled colleagues and drunk students, so he was satisfied. Even if he was constantly upgrading it, but he couldn't deny that he actually like doing those upgrades.

Of course, his AI also spent hours a week hacking at security footage, ma he was pretty sure the whole of Ben's precinct knew who he was, if the looks and jokes pointed his way during negotiations the last Christmas party at precinct were any indication. And his students had to have guessed, at least some of them. Kitty Pryde knew, for sure, ever since she'd 'tripped between walls' into his workshop or whatever euphemism mutants used for eavesdropping. And Stephen Strange had this way of looking at him that made him unsure if it was an indecent come on from a student or the compassionate stare of another self-named hero.

He really, really didn't want to consider that Tiberius Stone might have a clue about all this. There was something not right about that kid.

He ended up walking all the way to Peter's school. These streets were mostly filled with kids and harried adults, both groups playing Candy Crush on the phone while waiting on the sidewalk for relatives or a bus of their own. The school was less than twenty minutes away from the scene of the almost robbery, which didn't say much about the place. But It was a pretty nice school, Midtown High School, potential robberies aside. As nice as high schools could be, anyway. Nothing like the one Antal had gone for most of his life, back in Budapest, mostly because that one had been a short walk away from the river, but he'd made sure it was a good place.

Peter was waiting by the door, sitting down in the stairs and doing his homework. Antal grinned. It was prime position for hair ruffling.

"Hey!" He complained laughingly, swatting his arm. Antal hugged him for a moment and let him go, giving him one last good ruffle.

"Hi, kid. Ready to go?"

Peter looked up at him and rolled his eyes, trying to straighten his hair. Watching his son smile was a little strange if he thought about it, like looking into a mirror; they even had the same dimples.  
"Sure, just let me get my things."

"So, where to now? Your choice." Antal asked, dodging a pair of running teenagers and a bike.

Wednesdays were always Peter's choice. It was really a useless question, because there was only one place Peter liked best this time of the year.

"The Park." Peter said decisively. "I feel like having a hot dog."

"A hot dog it is." His kid was such a New York brat. "Even if American sausages are sad, sad imitations of the real deal."

Peter cried his outrage. "The sausages are great, you Hungarian snob."

"It's not snobbery, it's taste." Antal sniffed. Then, in a softer tone, he said, "your grandmother would have your head for that." His Anya had made these delicious, kosher sausages they grilled outdoors when the weather was good, and he still hadn't found any that came close.

Peter had nothing to say to that, except squeeze his old man's hand. Antal squeezed back, letting go with a snort when Peter became obviously embossed. Teenagers and their pride.

They walked away from the school, both of them side by side, both carrying backpacks. It was autumn in New York, meaning leaves crackling under foot and avoiding the puddles from the day before. The air was crisp and close, a relief after the long bus ride. Peter felt the same, by the way he tilted his head up to the wind.

"How was school?" Antal asked, taking Peter's lunch box with minimal protest. "English quiz went well?"

His kid made a face. "Mostly. I think I could have written more about Harper Lee's experiences and how they influence her characters, but the bell rang."

Peter was preening with pride and failing at covering it. Antal was proud as well. An year ago his kid had been coming back home almost everyday with papers graded not because he didn't know the subjects, but because his English wasn't top notch. Now he'd was turning up As at English like nobody's business.

"Advice from one perfectionist to another: don't beat yourself about such a little things. There are bound to be big mistakes messing with your work soon enough."

Peter shook his head. "You always say that, Dad. It's not nearly as reassuring as you think it is."

Antal put an arm around his shoulder with a companionable grin. "Ah, who said I wanted to reassure you? It's the truth." He ruffled his hair again for good measure, ignoring Peter's squeaking. "Don't stress it, kid."

"Such wise advice from the sage elder." He mocked.

He gasped, pressing a hand to his heart. "Who are you calling old, short stuff? Such disrespect to a parent," he sighed mournfully. "In my time, children obeyed their parents."

"You're not really helping your not-old argument saying things like that," Peter pointed out. "And anyway if you were the poster child of filial obedience then why did you set the kitchen on fire after being sent to bed?"

"It was for a school experiment," he said haughtily, manfully not hearing Peter's snickers. "And you are lucky you do not suffer the cruel yoke of nine o'clock bed time."

"No, I have ten o'clock bedtime," Peter said, glum.

"My poor deprived child," Antal rolled his eyes. "Whatever will you do with a healthy sleep schedule?"

"Nothing you'd know about." Peter said with a tilted grin, all mischievous crinkled in eyes.

Tony laughed out loud, and nudged him to cross the street. "You cheeky brat!"

Peter only smiled back unrepentant at his father's fond snort. One of the perks of parenthood was having someone else in the world with the same - admittedly lame- sense of humor.

They get the hotdogs near the place where the bustling city turned to the green of the park. Natural places had never done much for him, but he had too many good memories of strolling in parks and public gardens with his family not to recreate them with Peter. His son liked nature, liked the quiet. They both agreed that the Unisphere was the best part of the park, though.

The Flushing Meadows-Corona Park was a strange place, the New York State Pavilion looming like a rusty, abandoned car. It would be illegal to steal it, but it was a pity not to use the remaining pieces. The observation towers loomed over the park and the blocks around it.

Technically, it was illegal to get in. In practice it was still illegal, but Tony and Peter had been doing it for so long that the park's guards almost waved at them before remembering they were supposed to turn a blind eye. Ben would throw a fit if he knew his brother-in-law was bribing the park guards with baked treats, but it was worth it.

"You know, most kids my age don't spend their bonding time with their parents breaking into abandoned pavilions," Peter pointed out.

"Most kids your age are missing out on a great experience."

They sat at the end of the stairs. The odds of being see if they walked further were too high, but here they were high enough to watch the New York sky line from the open door. It was a heady feeling, this distance from the rest of the world, almost as good as flying. Better, considering the company.

"Man, the things I could do with a space like this." He sighed.

"Like what?"

This was an usual daydream of theirs: what would you do with the Pavilion if they could. Peter was all for an after school place, somewhere for little nerds to flock together and geek out.

"I see that offer and up it to a full-on science fair. Imagine it," he lifting his arms, encompassing the slow park, the decrepit structure, "all glitz and new inventions, the greatest minds of the world coming together for progress and mediocre hotdogs."

"Hey, don't diss the hotdogs," his son knocked their shoulders together. Antal laughed and bumped his shoulder on his back.

Peter perked up suddenly. "Hey, speaking of hot dogs, have I told you about that thing with Flash's mastiff and MJ's beagle? Last weekend they both went to the park, not this one, and their dogs started fighting--"

Peter's voice echoed down the old, metal stairs. Antal pressed his palms on the concrete, tilted his head and listened to him until the sky started to turn purple at the edges and they turned back home.

\--

  
The time between getting Peter home and dinner was the quietest in the János' household.

Except tonight they weren't having dinner at home. May and Ben had invited them, which is to say that May had crossed the narrow street, knocked on the window until one of them heard and asked if they wanted to have dinner at theirs tonight. Tony had said yes. He was a genius and ergo not enough of an idiot to say no to Ben's wonderful pies. Peter had grabbed his things to continue doing the last of his homework and they'd absconded to the guest room on the second floor, where Peter kept some clothes and there was a faded Beatles poster on the wall, because the Parker's were secretly hippies.

The sound of clinking plates and something bubbling in the pot came from downstairs. Someone, probably May, had turned up the radio and filled the house with Simon and Garfunkel. That and the sound of one overexcited robot.

"No, ROB, let go."

ROB tugged on the glasses. Antal tugged back, while Peter snickered without shame.

Robotic Optical Brush was one of those many prototypes that weren't terrible, but weren't the final product. It was supposed to be the best automatic glass and lenses cleaner in the world, producing its own cleaning liquid and brushing without scratching. This one was far larger and clunkier than the final product, moving around on one wheel, and had a clumsy AI code that had been the first he'd tried for that project. It was only functioning because he'd taken it to the Parker's that one time ti fiddle with and Ben had taken a liking to it and kept it around long after ROB-02 flooded the market for small gadgets.

"Fine, have at them!" He let go of the glasses and waggled a finger at the robot. ROB beeped happily, holding them carefully with its claw and focusing its brush on the lenses. "No scratching."

It yipped back. Damn if it wasn't a cute yip.

Jakab was probably right in saying that fatherhood had really mellowed him. At this point he didn't even care, as long as he had his kid and functioning glasses at the end of the day. Some days he thought he should just invest in eye surgery and be done with it, but yeah, there was no realistic way he was going to allow himself to be operated on blind and asleep.

Jakab was also probably right in saying that he was a paranoid bastard, but then again Jakab slept with no less than four knives and three guns in close reach, so he didn't have room to talk.

In theory he was helping him with homework, but in practice he was playing sending emails while his son scribbled away some history essay. He was much more interested than Antal in history and had refused his help in that subject. He contented himself that he couldn't be growing up that fast if he still asked for his help with trig. Granted, it was advanced trig, and it wasn't as much asking for help and arguing better formulas, but Antal wasn't in any hurry to admit his kid was growing up.

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** hey prof j are you free next week

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** katherine pryde?? how do you even have my mail

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** you gave it to the class on the first day of term?

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** nice try nope

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** ok ok i hacked the uni server to find it. but its important. there was a problem with my extracurrilucar activities and can i pls pls turn in my assignment next week? pls Pls pls

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** depends is xavier going to be there and try to convince me to join your 'extracurricular activities'

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** prob, dr maccoy said he wanted to come along or smth. but isn't prof x like your cousin?? cause of that magneto thing everyone pretends they dont knwo about not to make prof x sad??

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** kinda sorta if you squint?? but i dunno what he thinks im going to help with

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** prof j dont. we know you're ironman. literally the whole class knowns youre ironman

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** ironman who that flying hunk dunno him never met dont even like the guy

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** you have an ironman binder

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** It matches my kids

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** AWW. But srs can i postpone my assignment?

a.e.janós.columbia@gmail ugh ok but you better study like hell kid

 **nightkitty.xaviers@gmail** i will! Thanks a bunch iron prof

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** I AM NOT IRONMAN 

 **a.e.janós.columbia@gmail** dont let mccoy come hes terrible at keeping a low profile

There was no answer. He rolled his eyes and closed that tab. His students were such brats. 

The sky outside had started to darken the time Antal was done sending a scathing mail at Hammer's sad excuse for an R&D department. It was one of the perks both his jobs shares: liberty to create whatever and verbally destroy idiots. And as long as he kept his accounts separated no one knew HEART-E's R&D dick of a supervisor was Dr. Antal Janós from Columbia.

It also meant that he had to review both essays and graphs from students and grown engineers both, but in all honesty he didn't dislike it, as much as he complained. He was always proud when one of the kids moved from one category to the other, and he could follow their career up close.

Which, in hindsight, might be why his students were on to him. Not that he'd admit it, ever. They would never let him live it down. Hell, Ho would never ket him live it down.

"Have you heard anything from Uncle Ho?" Peter asked.

"Why do you think I'm not talking to him right now?"

Peter gave a knowing look.

"Yes, alright, I'm not talking to him." He agreed, because it was the truth and he always told the truth to his kid. "Hammer's lackeys are losing their edge, not they ever had it. Oh, and Kitty Pryde, remember, she babysat you that one time – is trying to set me on a work date with Chuck. It's not like the last superhero meetup was that long ago, but it doesn't seem urgent. Haven't heard from Ho yet. He was supposed to text me when his plane landed."

And he was right. It had been four days since Ho contacted him, longer than expected even considering how busy he must be, preparing for the event later tonight. Maybe he should call PEGGY, but Ho wouldn't be happy about it. He liked some time for himself, and he could hardly blame him.

They'd divided responsibilities pretty evenly, back when they'd been establishing things in Budapest. Ho got to spearhead the company, control most of the shares and court allies. He was the political face and the mind behind their better ideas. Antal did the heavy duty engineering, the delicate projects that couldn't be delegated, and dealt with all their private involvement in the superhero community, what of it there had been in the 90s. Keeping things balanced between HEART and Iron Man and the healing mess that had become their lives had been like dancing the tango in a tightrope, but they had had wonderful help.

In the end, HEART was the leading force in clean energy, technologies, communication and health care. Iron Man was one of the creating members of the first tentative treaties between mutated or mutant forces with global agencies, and while he wasn't part of any team, they kept a good relationships with most of them. They were an excellent team, Yinsen and Janós, Antal and Yinsen, Iron Man and The Healer. It meant they lived in each other's pockets and each other's houses, and sometimes slept in each other's beds when things got rough. It meant Peter was as much his kid as he was Ho's and that they'd created a coded shorthand just for the two of them. They were family, and as Jakab had so helpfully pointed out last summer, sometimes you had to let your family go on no-communication trips through Romania.

He didn't think Ho was in Romania, but then again maybe he was wrong and he and Jakab were sitting in some park playing chess and discussing early twentieth century poetry. They did that, sometimes.

Peter was frowning. Antal knew that frown. Peter was worried. Worse, he was worried and trying to hide it, a bad habit he had picked up from his father.

"Hey, relax. It's going to be great."

"I just-" he stopped, bunching up his fists. His fingers tangled in his shirt, playing with the seam. "I want you two to like each other, you know. I mean, she's my soulmate. She's my only friend," he confessed, and Antal's heart clenched behind the arc reactor. His Peter, kind and smart and good, didn't deserve to feel so lonely.

"Don't worry, kid. When am I ever not easy to get along with?"

"An astonishing amount of the time," May said from the doorway.

In this light she seemed younger, her hair brighter. Like Mary's. Anta  
blinked and nope, no dead wives, just May. He told himself it had no business hurting as much as it did, but it wasn't as bad as it used to be.

"We finished making dinner. I'd advise you to run before Ben hogs all the meat pies."

Peter scraped back the chair with that awful wood on wood noise. "Uncle Ben!"

Antal laughed and followed.

The rule was that whoever house's it was was the one cooking, but extras were welcome. They'd brought the leftover mangos and shamelessly taken advantage of Ben's famous meat pies. After dinner they settled in front of the tv. Wednesday's were Downton Abbey days, and Downton Abbey was a very serious matter for the Parker's. So serious, in fact, that it was the only time she ignored the kitchen table and sat on the couch and love seat around the television, plates in laps and glasses balanced near boots or on precarious piles of books.

"But Grey's Anatomy is so much better," Antal complained. "Isn't it? Peter, back up your old man here."

"Grey's Anatomy doesn't have Maggie Smith," his son said with an apologetic look. "Downtown Abbey does. You can't beat that.

"Lady Violet is definitely a Slytherin, though," pointed out May. Of all of then, she's the one who loves Harry Potter the most. She made Antal wait in the line on a cold evening to buy The Half Blood Prince, with the argument that he was the youngest adult in the house, even though he'd offered to hack the manuscript.

"Besides," Ben said, "Downtown Abbey has butlers."

Antal snorted. "My father was a butler and let me tell you, he'd do a better job than Carson with closed eyes and a leg tied behind his back. How does the guy not notice that half his staff is being blackmailed by the other half?"

"We can watch Grey's very dramatized version of anatomy in your house," May said, who had been a nurse for thirty seven years before her arthritis lead her an to early retirement last year. She was curled up beneath two blankets and gave another to Ben with a sweet smile, the hoggers. "Now shush, Lady Mary is here."

Antal settled in the sofa, Peter forking pie beside him, and settles in for some quiet time. Soon he and Peter would be off for wherever the girl next door had chosen, and later there would be the arc reactor's lighting, but for a time there was nothing pressing and most if his family was safe and happy beside him. He decided to enjoy while it lasted.

Granted, he hadn't thought it would be over so soon.

 

\---

"So, MJ -can I call you MJ?"

"Sure," she agreed. "Everyone calls me MJ."

"Cool, cool. I'm not asking how you met Peter cause I've heard that story about a hundred times already. But I have to ask: how did you know about this place and I didn't? I feel betrayed. The City of New York has betrayed my trust."

She smiled. It was a nice smile, braces and all, it went all the way to her eyes. "I'm glad you like it, From what Peter said I thought you'd like the smoothies. My mom's old sorority sister took her here once, I've been coming here since I was little."

Here was a diner right in the middle of Brooklyn, between a decrepit vinyls store and a second hand bookshop. The tiles were white and blue, the seats were fake letter, the table holders were ironically decorated with scenes of old 60's comics and Antal was unironically in love with the smoothies.

"Lucky kid. And lucky me, that my son was smart enough to tell you the way to my heart was good smoothies and old comics."

Peter pulled a very complicated face. That his smoothie still hadn't disappeared of the face of earth was proof that Peter was nervous. He didn't see why. MJ was May-approved, so there really was no way for her to mess up this meet-the-dad after dinner smoothie trip. May was the best judge of character since, well, her sister. And MJ's Mom worked in Ben's precinct. Besides, it wasn't like Antal was being embarrassing.

Okay, Antal was totally embarrassing his kid. This was a perfect opportunity and he couldn't be blamed for taking the chance when it was right there.

And MJ was a cool kid, she got the idea. She had a sense of humor, always a plus. She and Peter had plenty of in-jokes and traded references like it was getting out of style, even though they had known each other for less than two weeks. That was probably where the soulmate thing came in, though he had to wonder, going with that fated-to-meet line of thought, why they'd met now, when they kids had been neighbors for more than three years.

Antal splayed his hands in the sticky table. It was probably syrup. This seemed like the sort of place where you could get good pancakes with syrup. He put on his best charmingly-excentric-urban-dad face on and smiled at MJ.

"Your son is very smart, Mr. János."

"Oh please Mr János was my Apa, God protect his wonderful soul. Call me Professor J or Antal."

"Not Tony?"

He tried not to wince and probably failed. Mary had been the last person to call him Tony, more than a decade ago. "Not all of us want to go be all-american about it."

"Dad." Peter groaned. "Peter and Péter are literally the exact same names.

"That's right you're Hungarian aren't you?" MJ cut in. Her own charmingly-irreverent-teenage face was pretty good.

He liked this girl. He'd liked her since Péter's first mark had shown up, Face it Tiger...You just hit the jackpot in round letters on his son's arm. He sincerely hoped she and Peter continued friends even if the whole soulmate thing didn't work out, but for their faces it would be better if it went well.

He liked her, but that didn't mean he hadn't done his own research. They were both so young. At this age, soulmates had a greater hold in neurological and physical development, not to mention the psychological landmine that was soulmate bonds during teenage years.

There was always a danger involved, no guarantees. Matched Words weren't about safety; they were about compatibility, whatever that meant, and what it usually meant was a heavier load than rom coms would have one believe.

"My Anya -my mother- was. She met Apa during the war, it was all very romantic. I lived there all my childhood, until I met Peter's mother, around the time of my second doctorate." His pocket was still. Yinsen usually called three hours before any event, but so far nothing.

"Was that mechanics or robotics?"

Antal gave her a long look and chuckled. MJ blinked innocently back. Her own charmingly-irreverent-teenage face was pretty good.

"Looks like someone did their homework. It was Mechanics, Physics was after. That one was fun, had a great tutor to bounce ideas off in Budapest.What fields are you interested in, MJ?," he asked, enjoying her narrowed eyes at the sudden turning of tables. "Peter tells me you're on the newspaper club."

"Yes I was the newspaper photographer last year. This time the editor liked Peter's portfolio better. It's okay, photography wasn't quite right for me. I'm thinking of starting filming, try my hand had home movies." She gave Peter a mischievous look and leaned over the table. "It's just a pity that your son is so camera-shy."

Peter was blushing. Clearly that had been MJ's objective, going by her smug look while he spluttered.

Antal sighed dramatically. "A true shame. I don't know where he gets it. I'm not shy, with the camera or anything." He waggled his eyebrows, making MJ snigger over her smoothie and Peter look horrified.

"Please don't think the rest of my family is this crazy." He begged MJ. "Aunt May and Uncle Ben are perfectly normal people who don't make innuendoes at their nephew's soulmate."

Antal snorted. "Clearly you haven't spoken with your Uncle Jakab enough." Though to be honest, Jakab wasn't really the innuendo type. And it was hard to talk to him these days. Antal was all for his brother going on a trip of self discovery and all, but would it kill him to call every once in a while?

He must have been silent for too long because MJ was looking curiously between the two of them. He cleared his throat and checked his phone again. No messages yet.

"So, you kids are going to watch the inauguration?"

MJ brightened, "yes, actually I'm hoping to get it on film, maybe post it online if it's good enough. Peter helped me set up a Youtube account. They say Iron Man is going to be there."

"Do they?" He asked, distracted, His phone had finally vibrated.

Antal read the message twice before getting up and holding his suitcase at the same time he started to put on his jacket, nearly upturning Peter's smoothie. His son lifted his eyebrows, surprised.

"Great -shit, sorry- have fun." He pressed a kiss on his son's head, clasping his shoulder briefly. He waved at MJ. "Awesome meeting you, be a good influence on my kid. It's Wednesday so don't stay out too late. Bey-Bye, love ya kid!"

"Is he always in such a hurry?" He heard MJ ask as he opened the door.

He was out of the diner and dialing before his jacket was fully on.

"This better be a fucking disaster."

"It is, Janós," Fury growled, "It's the goddamn apocalypse."

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apa- father in hungarian  
> Anya- mother in hungarian


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

_2011_

 

 

  
It started with a phone call.

"What is it?" he asked. Only it was - he wasn't sure, but hep but Peter to bed a long while ago - and he hadn't slept in three days, so it came out more like 'whas'it'.

"Dr. Jarvis?" A woman's voice spoke." This is Dr. Jane Foster. We met last fall in Yale for the astrophysics talks."

Tony squinted. The basement was lit up only from the small light by his desk and the arc reactor in his chest, dimmed beneath his Columbia t-shirt.

"Dr. Foster. It's - how late is it?"

He could hear her rummaging somewhere, probably around a table as cluttered and scienc-y as his. She muffled the phone against something, enough that he could hear questions but not the words. "Darcy - my assistant- says its three a.m in New York. You're still in Columbia, right?"

"Yeah, same old same old," he said. Antal rubbed his face, blinking hard down at the papers he'd been working on. Or had been working on. He was supposed to be grading assignments, but had ended up sketching on his tablet the basis for the more efficient particle accelerator that had been on his mind since he'd gotten a look at Pym's work on a national science fair the month before.  
He didn't replicate the textiles, didn't need to, he was both far better than Pym and not a copy cat, but the final result would depend on well he could improve the protective alloys used. There was the possibility of creating an inner suit to better protect him under the armor, and on a wider scale. HEART could always use some body armor. That was a slippery slope, though, he'd need to speak with Ho tomorrow--.

"Yeah, three a.m. Not to be rude or anything, but why exactly are you calling me at 3 a.m?" He hadn't thought they were at that science-buddies level, but he wasn't the best at calling those sort of things.

"Yes, that," she cleared her throat. Antal perked up considerably. He knew that kind of cleared throat- it was the one right before someone said something inconceivable and weren't expecting to be believed. He was a master at that created throat. "Listen, remember when we went to the synagogue?"

That was a non-sequitur, but he said yes, because they'd spend some very interesting hours arguing about the science involved in the parting of the Red Sea on the way back and because Jane Foster drove like a demon. "You had some interesting but wrong ideas about outliers breaking religious-cultural patters, and also, you nearly ran someone over."

She laughed. It was the pre impossible-admission laugh. Not to quote Star Wars, but Antal was starting to get a strange feeling about this. "Yeah," she agreed, "well, I did ran someone over. You could say it was a religious experience."

 

  
_201_

 

 

He'd been to Struttgart once before, that one time when they were first getting HEART off the ground and needed the money. Yinsen had come down with a bug, poor guy, so it had been up to him to do the pitch. He'd gone to the Porsche headquarters, waited on an state-of-the-art, incredibly uncomfortable chair and ended up selling the patent for his less costumized motors for a hefty sum. He'd felt foul, selling his idea like that, but it had been necessary. SHIELD's cash wasn't eternal and it had been far too dangerous to contact Aunt Peggy those days. Not that the Jarvises would have stood for it long.

It had been worth it, for the pride in his parents' face when HEART first came online.

So he'd sold his ideas, and felt bad about it, and then shook it off. He'd walked around, done the whole tourist-routine, picking up postcards, relishing being alive and not being slowly poisoned. Jakab had showed up after a couple of days, and they'd had a good time, getting to know each other. A becoming-friends beyond the whole tried-to-kill-me-but-saved-my-life-and-got-adopted-into-the-family thing.

They'd visited the Old Castle and the New Castle, went to the Wilhelm Palace, back when it was still the city library. It turned out Jakab loved libraries, he was a bit of a nerd, and so they'd ended up spending the afternoons on a corner of the library, him discovering the books he'd missed and Antal scratching down ideas for a more efficient reading format, because books smelled and were heavy and he really didn't understand Jakab's horror at the idea. They'd been to the museum too, made a day out of it. They'd taken photos and everything: he had a nice candid of himself staring at a medieval painting with a quizzical look, taken by Jakab. He'd started his hobby then. They'd been brothers before, but the end of that day they'd been on their way to being friends.

The flight, all three hours of it, was an experience in cramming. The new wealth of information on thermonuclear astrophysics and the members of Fury's dream team were very illuminating. The whole situation was still being taken apart from SHIELD's shady habits, but this: flying off towards dangers, learning and understanding information, this was what he loved. Both as a scholar and Iron Man, really. Why do one when you could do both?

Anyway. Point was, it was weird to be back, weirder to be prepping to fight against an evil space god, and it wasn't a nice weird. He liked this place, he had good memories of this place, and he didn't like that Loki thought he could put his cold ice-giant hands all over it. That guy had serious entitlement issues.

Honestly, making people kneel. What an old-school villain. Next he'd start monologuing. 

"PEGGY, you get music's choice. Do your worst."

"As you say," she conceded, amusement in her voice. A second later Don't Stop Me Now by The Queen's rang out in the German sky. Inside the suit, Antal laughed.

"Oh PEGGS, you're such a British."

"Always, sir."

The helicarrier- still amazing, those motors were to die for, he was pretty sure people had actually died for them - was filled to the brink with SHIELD agents scurrying around, sitting at desks in front of screens or standing around stoically while Captain America (Peter was so not going to believe that) and Loki beat each other. Fury was watching this, casually as you please. With the eyepatch and the fluttering cape he looked like a pirate King, but Antal was wise enough to know that at this point he'd exhausted the pirate jokes. He felt tempted to share the music with them, but he could tell by his one-eyed glare that he'd probably not understand the glory of The Queen.

Then he did it anyway, because it was the surest way to get PEGG access to SHIELD's --well, everything. He was a flying nerd: he did not like not knowing every single fact and facet of what was going on.

(In his room at the Parker's, Péter Benjamin Janós looked up from the research on cubes and mythological trees. His tablet let out a ding.

He opened the mail his father had sent him. SUBJECT- Blue Cube of Tube. Go get 'em kid. Inside was a link to all of SHIELD's files on the Tesseract.

Peter cracked his knuckles and dug in.)

Natasha was beside the Director, suited up in all her terrifying ninja glory.

"Hey Nat! What's up?"

She wasn't impressed. "Nice music. Did your kid hack his playlist into the suit?"

"Oi, for your information my kid has great taste in music!" That was a partly a lie. Peter, sweet Peter, had fallen to the Parker's hippy ways. He liked to hum Yellow Submarine. So did Antal, but he was old enough to like The Beatles, if barely. "And my system is teen-proof." Also a lie, because his kid was genius and a nosy one at that, much to his pride, but she didn't need to know that.

"Besides, I know you love Freddy Mercury," he shot back. She didn't deny, or say anything really. So that was where Peter had picked up the sceptic stare. Not as good as his brother's, but he was convinced Jakab had achieved an unknown depth of feeling from his stares.  
It was even more effective than Ho's 'be silent young padawan look.'

He hoped Loki had cringed under that stare. At the same time, Ho would never let it go if he managed to cower an alien, so maybe he didn't.

"I'm trav'ling at the speed of light," he sang at her and Fury even more unimpressed face before turning to the fight and landing. "I wanna make a supersonic woman out of you." Cap was down. No, now it was Loki that was down. That seemed unlikely. Were they being played? He was pretty sure he still had bruises from New Mexico telling him they were being played. He blasted Loki full force just for those bruises.

All weapons drawn, suit vibrating with good 70's music and lethal energy, he looked down at the Lie-Smith and smiled without anyone to see it.

"János."

Loki looked terrible. Not terrifying, but like one of Antal's most frantic, brilliant students with illusions of grandeur. Whatever had happened to him after he'd fallen off that mythic, scientifically unlikely Asgardian bridge, had left him much the worse for wear than his previous life as a prince of a galactic imperial power.

Something Loki had taken to a whole new level, if his horned helmet was anything to go by. And the scepter. Magical, sorcerer's scepter, like the one he'd built for Peter's ninth Halloween. Except that one hadn't had a weapon of mass destruction on it - May had strict rules about that sort of thing.

His eyes were hollow and far too blue. He tried to imagine Yinsen's dark, keen eyes turned into that blue, and shuddered.

"Hiya, Reindeer Games. Not looking so well, but then again that's probably why it wasn't an open casket funeral. Oh wait, no, not a dead alien, just an ass."

This, he was sure, was a very good line, what with all the might of the suit pointed at a fallen foe. Loki did not seem particularly scared, but they'd work on that. He could work with that.

"Professor."

It was Captain America who was talking to him. Captain America, who looked like a hipster, which was vaguely baffling, but Antal didn't really care. Antal, to use his student's expression, had no chill whatsoever.

He flashed him a smile with too many teeth. "Captain. Don't worry, I'm not going to be stepping on your toes. I'm going to be quick here and start the interrogation already." He turned to Loki, giving a properly menacing step forward.

"I'm afraid you've got something, actually someone of mine. Tall fellow, glasses, wise and kindly beard? Name's Ho, hates name jokes? Yeah, I want him back."

 

 

  
_1991_

  
He had met Yinsen back in '87, on a late autumn night. They'd gone to the same conference in New York, but it had been in the train station that they'd actually gotten to know each other, sitting on their cold bums and blowing on their hands.

It had been the first time he was away on his own, even if it was for the Berkeley- MIT lecturing program, and he'd been high on the freedom, spent the trip taking photos of the boring scenery and jotting down ideas to his heart's desire. Actually, he'd been reading Yinsen's new paper, getting ready for the lectures last minute. He'd looked up and on the photo in the corner there had been the same face of the man sitting in front of him. He'd introduced himself, contradicted his theory on thermodynamics, and the rest was history.

They spoke about their work, their families -Yinsen's toddler and his lovely wife ,Tony's awesome parents and college misdemeanors. Probably not something he should be telling a teacher, but oh well. As it was, it hadn't been the easiest start of a friendship in his repertoire of terrible first meetings, that was Bruce, but at least he hadn't accidentally hit him in the face with a cleaning bucket like that time he met Happy.

In his defense, he'd been six and Happy had always been a sneaky kid.

(Antal was pretty sure his face when Ho told him he was Wordless had been hilarious, but Ho had been nice enough not to laugh outright.

"But you're married! And happy! Happily married!"

Ho had given him a dry look, not unkind. He'd known, even then, what Antal was. Some people were more obviously Unmarked then others, and Antal had never been the best at passing. "So I am. I assure you that my lack of Soul does not hinder my work."

Antal had stared at him for a moment and burst out laughing, and tried not to cry a little too. It was the first time he ever spoke with another Unmarked.)

Still, it wasn't unheard off for one of them to go radio silent, during in deep researches or when the school work swallowed any remains of a social life. The time difference between New York and Gulmira wasn't great either

Two weeks was a bit much, though. He ended up trying again while taking his lunch break alone, in one of the student rooms scattered all over the library, huddled over cold crepes and rice and missing his parent's cooking. They were away on vacation in Spain, and there was no one else in the world that deserved to relax and have fun as they did, but as well earned as it was, he missed them. He missed Bruce almost as much, but he knew for a fact that he was swamped with work, and nobody wanted to bother Bruce when he was busy, he turned into a terrifying rage monster living off coffee and spite.

It was as good a time as any to call Yinsen's phone. It always an endeavor with fifty-fifty chances of working because Yinsen preferred written communication to anything else, so he didn't think it strange that they failed. He tried the house phone after. Nobody answered the first three calls, not even one of Yinsen's many nephews and nieces that were always underfoot. Maybe they had all gone to visit family away, but Yinsen usually said something in case he lost internet connection.

Antal told himself not to take it personally. Sure, he was younger and less experient and maybe his tiny tiny crush was a bit obvious, but Yinsen was a cool dude. He wouldn't leave him hanging like that. Besides, they had, like, one hundred common projects going on. Yinsen never bailed on a project, he was far too responsible for that.

He tried some more times, but by then other students were filling the study room, thrumming with nervous energy, and he had to focus on looking busy and hopefully unnoticeable. He meant to graduate from Columbia with another doctorate and a brilliant record, and getting into fights because other, older students wanted his help cheating would mess that up.

But the worry kept niggling at the back of his very capable brain. It was very distracting. The day after he called his godmother and asked to reschedule their monthly tea earlier.

"Aunt Peggy! Over here!"

Antal waved from his seat. Aunt Peggy tuned to him, her hat tilted at a perfect angle and crowning her high above the rest of the crowd. Antal made a note to himself not to forget to buy her a Christmas present. Not another hat, she already had lots of them and each one very stylish. Gloves, maybe, or shoe soles with an adherent factor to better grasp walls. He and SHIELD's R&D division had been fighting for the Director's favor since he was five.

She gave him a kiss to the forehead and a wry look. He grinned back, unrepentant. It was not, he knew, a proper spy greeting, but he was a civilian and honestly, it would have been more suspicious, a grown woman and an unrelated young man sitting together at a tea shop.

It wasn't like they were strangers to this place. He'd been coming here with Aunt Peggy, separately or with his parents, since they'd moved to New York. It was, both his father and godmother agreed, the only place this side of the ocean that most genuine raspberry scones. Antal, who preferred blueberries, took their word for it.

They did not speak of anything serious until the food had been served. "Anthony. How are you?"

He took a bite from the scone and swallowed. "Quite well, thank you."

"I will not ask you about your studies, because I'm quite sure you're sick of answering the same questions," she said. He sighed, rolling his eyes to her amused disapproval. Another British thing, and pretty hypocrites since shed spent her early career rolling her eyes at her superiors. Or so he'd been told.

"Quite. I like Columbia very much, but I swear people are noisier in New York."

Aunt Peggy gave him a discerning look. "I've heard you've been noisy all on your own."

Antal turned serious. His hands, busy fidgeting with the cup plate's rim and the table towel, stilled. He straightened his back and swallowed. "Yes, Aunt Peggy, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I think my best friend has been taken prisoner in enemy territory. I intend to bring him back."

For a second, Aunt Peggy stayed quiet, pausing the cup near her lips. After a moment she took a sip and put it back carefully, noiselessly.

"My dear," she said wryly, "I always did get the impression I was going to hear those words again. Somehow I am not surprised it is from you."

 

 

 

_2012_

 

 

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting from Steve Rogers. Someone bigger than life, maybe. He was the reason the California Stark Manor was left empty and quiet for those months every year, and for that Antal supposed he ought to thank him, because during those many weeks the cold halls and rich draperies became his playhouse, without Howard Stark to glare at his butler's troublesome son. It was always easier to sneak inside the lab when he wasn't there, and Anya could teach him the piano with the big black instrument in the foyer, not the worn one in the servant's halls. The kitchen was all theirs too, so they could cook anything they wanted, and sometimes he and the gardener's son Happy went on raids to the pantry.

There had been a storage basement filled with Captain America memorabilia, and Antal had loved playing around with the figurines and reading all the comics for two weeks before Stark came back and threw a fit when he saw him there. He'd asked why to his godmother, since Aunt Peggy knew so much about Captain America.

"Well, Anthony," she had said. She and Dad were the only ones who called his that; Anya said it was a British thing. "Steve was Howard's friend as well as mine. He touched our lives very deeply. I suppose collecting Captain America comics and those silly figurines is his way of grieving, and remembering him. It is a private thing."

He'd looked down, shamefaced, but she'd tilted his head up. She was frowning again, but it wasn't at him, "That being said, he should not have yelled at you. I will have words with him."

And he'd giggled, because no one wanted to have words with Aunt Peggy.

He wondered if she knew Rogers was alive. Legally, she had to, she was one of his soulmates and it was her right to know his change from underwater capsicle to well conserved geriatric. Knowing SHIELD, he wouldn't hold his breath on that. Peter would like the trip to D.C.; it had been some time since she'd seen him.

"Are you really Steve Rogers?" He asked, and held up an armored hand at his slightly offended face, "I know, I know, SHIELD defrosted you and everything. Just asking for a friend. Are you actually Brooking born-and-bred, little runt turned pinnacle of human perfection Steven Grant Rogers?"

"Yes, I am," apparently actual Captain America said, more than a little exasperated. PEGGY's scans on the HUD screen showed he was not lying, unless he was capable of controlling his physical responses to an incredible point. Which wouldn't be all that surprising, really.

At least the guy believed what he was saying. That was something.

He shrugged semi-apologetically. "Sorry, sorry, had to check."

Rogers turned a suspicious look of his own at him. Good. At least he wasn't totally gullible, even if he seemed disappointingly eager to jump to Fury's tune. "Are you going to keep hiding yourself behind that helmet or what?"

"What," he said in a monotone. Rogers was not amused. Antal didn't particularly care, but he could also hear his mother's voice telling him to be kind to the misplaced captain, so he did take off the helmet, the metal articulation so opening with a low hiss. He had to stop himself from shivering with the cold.

Rogers stared at his face, frowning. Antal knew the dots he was trying to connect and hoped he'd fail. This wasn't the time for that conversation -- as far as he was concerned, it would never happen.

"I know, I know, I'm too handsome for words. Everyone has their cross to bear."

"This is no time for jokes." Mr. American Apple Pie said sternly. "He's giving up too fast. I don't remember it being this easy."

Antal waved a dismissive hand. "Oh yeah, he's totally stringing us along. Question is why."

"Distraction." Rogers furrowed his manly brow. Even his forehead was patriotic, god. Antal was not American enough for this nonsense.

"I've fought this guy before and his distractions are usually more destructive," he reminded him. "But sure, why not? Trickster God and all that. The most he gains is being inside the quinjet. Attack from within, get us on the wrong trail, bam, he's out."

"But he's still wasting precious time," Rogers pointed out.

For a moment they were silent, Rogers presumably calling upon his woefully outdated Word War II strategies, Antal considering the knowledge gathered from years of finding out and preventing cheaters on his classes.

Same thing, really.

"This reminds me of that thing with Stone, the mountain goat and the hacker for hire," he grumbled. "My students are very inventive when it comes to cheating," he added when Rogers gave him a quizzical look. He made a sound close to a snort, amused despite himself for a short moment and then he was a stick in the mud again. So the good Captain he was not completely without humor, just very good at pretending so and at being soulless. He could see how Aunt Peggy could have appreciated that.

And Jakab as well, the little shit. He still wasn't sure how he was going to tell him, or if he should be the one to do it. He wasn't sensitive enough to breach the subject without traumatizing someone, possibly booth of them.

'Hey bro, Jakey, the terrifying adopted son of my adoptive parents, you remember what life was like before you were kidnapped by that crazy evil organization? Probably not, but just to refresh your memory, does Steve Rogers ring any bells?'

Speaking of brothers and long due reunions, there was Thor. And he'd grabbed Loki. Of course he did.

"Oh, look, there's my buddy Point Break. And there goes his brother, our thicket to saving the world."

He and Rogers traded a look, because it felt like the thing to do. This was probably the sort of moment people when traded meaningful looks before chasing a common goal. Didn't mea. he didn't completely abandon the grounded Captain.

"Sorry," he called behind himself while putting on the helmet, "didn't you read my file? Bad at teamwork, it's a character flaw."

Then he was plummeting towards when Thor was kicking Loki into the ground.

Thor and Loki were not gods, of course. They were members of two separate alien races, each one with its own physiognomy, but similar enough that Odin All-Asshole could get away with using warped energy - he refused to call it magic - to let Loki pass as an Asgardian for literally ages. Their family story was long and confusing and Antal now knew far too much about the prank wars between Thor and the Warrior Three and Loki than he'd ever wanted, courtesy of that frankly baffling week he'd spent in New Mexico upgrading Forster's equipment, avoiding his ex-friend and giving life advice to gods-not-gods.

And SHIELD wondered why he'd demanded a raise of his consultant fees.

He caught up to them while they were making dents on Austrian mountains. Loki was saying something about being King, Thor wasn't happy and Mjölnir settled comfortably on Antal's open hand when he extended it.

"Hi, Mye-Mye," he said lovingly. Mjölnir thrummed in response, strong enough that he could feel it in his bones, and hummed. It was a very nice hum.

Usually Antal hated magic, but for Mye-Mye, as Foster's intern had named the hammer, he made an exception, if for no other reason than a weakness for sentient metallic objects and because she was a work of art of epic proportions.

He might have at one point in that crazy week convinced Thor to take him as a plus one for any future invitation for Nidavellir. Magic was awful and all, but those dwarves had some smithing technics that made his mouth water.

"And hi, Thor. How have you been?"

"Quite well, friend Antal. And yourself?" Thor asked. The lack of magic hammer did not seem to be hindering him in kicking his brother's ass. "Heimdall informed me that your son completed his rites of manhood. I hope the gifts of congratulations arrived on time."

"They did, Peter loved it, many thanks." Peter had had a blast at his Bar Mitzvah. Antal had had considerably less fun trying to avoid his kid taking off someone's arm with the gigantic sword and shield that had showed up on the doorstep with a conflagration of runes and smoldering grass.

The shield was of some sort of oak wood, and reflected anything from laser to bullets. It had lead to a discussion on responsibility and how just because he had a super shield capable of defeated everyone he shouldn't be out there defeating everyone. His son had called him and hypocrite, Antal had put his foot down on the issue and the only reason it hadn't degenerated into a fight was Ben's awesome timing to turn all philosophical.

At least the sword had ended up changing shape to fit Peter's scrawny built. "He's calling it Sting, takes it every time for his swordsmanship classes now."

Thor laughed. Thor, it turned out, had really really loved the Tolkien books they'd bought at Puento Antiguo. "Tis verily good that he follows the example of the small but indomitable hobbit Bilbo of Baggins."

"Speaking of human but indomitable forces, we humans kinda need Loki for a while. He's all yours after, but until he's connected to the Tesseract he's under our jurisdiction." He tossed the hammer at Thor. Asgardian's didn't deal well with confusing acts of good faith mid-battle, so he would be hopefully too confused or too honorable to use it against him.

"I must return Loki to Asgard to face the All-Father's Justice," Thor argued. "The Tesseract and its power is far beyond your comprehension. No offense meant, Man of Iron," he added belatedly.

Loki twitched in the ground. He was laughing. Thor and Antal both tossed considerable amounts of different energies at him, simultaneously.

"That's great, but also wrong. The Treaty of Realms declares that any inter-planetary enemy committing crimes against a realm answers to that realm for a period of 3 Sols or however long it takes to avoid further danger. Midgard didn't sign in on the Treaty but we were covered under the terms of the Ygdrassil Intercommunication Section. Your Dad ought to know that since he was, you know, one of the guys officiating it and all."

Along with the weapons, there had also been a pile of incredible holographic books, courtesy of Queen Frigga. They had been a gift for him, the actual-star-wars-recording-message, as thanks for the guidance offered to her son, and in the hopes that future communication between their Realms might follow a more peaceful path. Somehow Antal got the feeling she hadn't given Loki that holographic memo.

Thor frowned, but there was a glint in his eyes. Despite the situation, Antal was enjoying himself too. Despite being exiled for being a dumb heir doing dumb shit, Point-Break wasn't an idiot. He was, in fact, the very very old heir to a much older semi-empire, and so he knew politics pretty well, even if he didn't have a taste for them.

Antal, on the other hand, was a member of the Midgardian scholarly community. He knew how to pick up previous documents written entirely to contradict his point use them to screw over the rules of accepted paradigms. He was the bullshit boss here, and if Odin and his ironic A+ Parenting had something to say to that they should go to one of the Columbia Christmas conferences and see how well they survived it.

"I regret telling you about the Treaty. I would not have done so if I thought you would abuse it." He stared at him with that profound stare that somehow saw beyond the armor. It was creepy as hell. "I do not wish to fight you."

At least they agreed on that. "Neither do I! There's no abuse of authority going here. You want Loki, you want the Tesseract stopped: we want you to take Loki, we want the Tesseract stopped. Let's work together, three heads and a shady government agency work better than one."

Antal felt rather proud. Now that was teamwork, and with someone he was bartering with. His Anya would be proud.

"Three heads?" Thor asked, right about the same time Steve Jogging Rogers ran inside the alien-made meadow.

Thor pointed Mye-Mye at him. Rogers stopped and lifted the shield. Antal sighed and placed himself between them. This was turning out to be exactly like supervising the state science fair, only with considerably less nuclear radiation. So far at least.

"Thor, this is Captain Steven Grant Rogers of the American Army, lately of SHIELD. He's the first superhero, the man with a plan, blah blah blah. Captain, meet Prince Thor of Asgard, Son of Odin All-Father and the much more awesome Frigga All-Mother, called the Thunder God even though he's not a god, the guy who gave my kid a sword for his Bar Mitzvah. Now behave. I'm going to go apprehend Horny Head here."

Loki was twitching again. Antal knocked him down with a repulser blast, just because.

"So," he clapped his hands together, "let's get this show on the road!"

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

_2012_

 

  
Twenty three years since they'd met, a kidnapping, one secret identity, one company, two noble prizes, three tragedies and one birth after, they spent on average seven hours a week trading ideas and sending long emails of research, jokes and venting. Tony knew all the hot gossip about the Yinsen's neighbors, what was going on in the company, and he in turn had resigned himself to a steady stream of photos of Peter and Antal's students.

Twenty fucking years after Afghanistan, and here he was again: wondering how the hell his older, sensible best friend had gotten himself kidnapped. By terrorists.

But this time it got worse. These time they were space terrorists.

"Seriously?" He asked, wishing he was more incredulous.

"The leader is Thor's brother. You'll remember his by his planet-sized Daddy Issues and fucking murder robot."

Antal remembered. He'd teamed up with Foster's plucky assistant and they'd actually managed to steal a bot part in the middle of the clean up at New Mexico. He liked to bring it it to play with when his schedule was little light. Extraterrestrial robotics were as infuriating as they were entertaining.

"Let's cut the crap, shall we? My best friend just got kidnapped, in your facilities, might I add. Why exactly do they have Ho? I mean, which of the dozens of reasons is it this time?

He still couldn't believe Ho Yinsen had been in the states for so long and told him nothing. Even besides the whole best friend's not keeping secrets thing, he was his bodyguard. He needed to know when he went strolling around covert agencies' research labs.

"Leverage and bait", Fury said grimly. Bait to get Iron Man, and SHIELD, no doubt. Leverage because no one wanted to hurt the owner of the grsdtest powerhouse in the world, and because Loki knew jed rather cut off his arm than hurt Yinsen.

"There is also the issue of the mind control."

Antal came to a dead stop in the middle of a Manhattan street. A car honked nearby and he had to stop himself from flinching. A fellow in a suit elbowed him to get past.

He'd mowed his way through a subway ride, all the while speaking to Fury in Hungarian. All the while he'd forgotten to mention that detail.

"Say what again?"

"You will be told what you need to know--"

"What I need to know? Fury, if Yinsen is being mind controlled, I need to know." He took a deep breath and took to an actual jog, "where the fuck are you?"

"No where you need to know. I'll send someone to meet you after the inauguration."

Antal let out a crass laugh. "Oh no. You're not sidelining me on this."

"You have a responsibility to HEART, János, whether you like it or not." At the moment he really didn't like it.

"Fuck responsibility." But Fury was right, more than he knew. Previous confrontations with Loki showed that They needed the arc reactor online and working at full capacity.

Fuck, that was probably why he'd taken Yinsen.

"You're not in a position to fuck anything right now, much less responsibility. Now get your metal ass in that damn tower and plug in those superpowered night lights."

The tower was closer now, blocking his view. Lights reflected off the glass walls, the city who never slept but always kept a light on. There were already people crowding the pavements nearby, waiting for the inauguration. "I will, but I'm not going to like it."

He hung up the phone before Fury could answer with something almost but not quite as pithy. It wasnt like he woukd be able to hear him above the noise.

"Oh, come on," he groused.

The streets around him were filled with people, two swelling, thrumming bodies competing against each other. Both sides held cards and posters, both screaming their opinions.

This was really quite terrible timing.

"The time has come!" A fellow wearing a red cap was yelling. He was waving a card post very vigorously. "Down with the Unmarked! No words no worth! The time has come, death to the Unmarked!"

"How original,", a woman wearing the black on white pattern of the Unmarked Society snorted. They shared a look of understanding before she turned to yell back at the protester, waving her own card around.

"Grow up, you prejudiced piece of shit! Who the hell ar you to decide who's worthy of what?"

The Unmarked Rights protest. He'd, somewhat ironically, forgotten about it. Sure, it was hard to forget that there was a vast group of people wanting you dead or worse for being born without Words, but it wasnt something he dwealt on a lot. Not these days, anyway. Hed never been as involved in the community as he ought to have been, before because the one time he'd sneaked out fir a pro-rughts protest his parent's had had to bail him from the police, and he'd sworn never to give them reason to look like that again. And then when he was in Budapest because hed been keeping a low profile, and getting arrested for punching a prejudiced asshole wasnt worth blowing everything for.

He'd never been the brawling type, anyway. His parents had taught him to use his mind and words as weapons, and his godparents had both privided lessons in that department, both very different. He could and did much better for the cause as Iron Man, and it wasnt like it wasn't an important part of his life. HEART had been one of the first start-ups with equal opportunities hiring policies, back in the 90's. It had made things harder for them, but in the big scheme of things it helped to set the lines right at the beginning. Ho had almost been kidnapped by fanatics more than once.

But he'd never been kidnapped. Iron Man had never failed him before.

The American headquarters of H.E.A.R.T.- E - Hardware Energy And Robotics Energy Enterprises - had been the result of an arquitecture and engineering project. Antal had had a vote in the matter, and he and Yinsen had spent hour after weekend lunches chugging down coffee and selecting the schematics. In the end they'd ended up with Yinsen's second favorite and Antal's forth choice. They'd made bets on it before played their version of trivial persuit and Antal had lost because of a stupid question about Bruce Springsteen.

The end result was a broad, high glass structure in Midtown Manhatten, with different layers of windows, growing steadily broader and taller. The entrance was a great arch with two more at each side, held up with columns. At first glance they seemed porcelain, but closer one could see the bold blues, yellows and whites, azulejo patters ever shifting. Inside the walls held projections as well, and became holograms when touched, while others had some with monitors and interactive sisters. Some of the windows had the effect of vibrant stained glass, inspired by the Nasir-ol-Molk mosque in mind. Yinsen had fond memories of visiting with his family.

It had been called the Heart of The Future, a good enough name. Its sister in Budapest was The New Babel, and that one had grown over need and time. This one was one full project, rooted with a clear course.

It was, Antal admitted, a pretty brilliant place. It left him proud in a way that was difficult to describe to see the holograms he'd toiled on his forgotten, dusty workshop in Budapest shining so brightly and easily by so many people. He was a futurist, and that meant that he was more sentimental than he cared to admit, but he could confess to himself that this was what HEART was about, what Iron Man was about.

What he and Yinsen believed on and had built, together.

There was a door to the far side, near the back, with a Authorised Personnel Only sign. Antal pressed his hand on the metal, activating a recognisement system. Better than the first one fheys set up in Budapest, thats for sure, but they'd gone a long from then.

He opened the door and closed it immediately after, half-sprinting down the hall. As he walked he cracked open his suitcase. The armor unfolded him from one step to the next, metal encasing his joints, helmet snugly on his head. It lit up all at once, nine different points of information running all at once.

"Sir," PEGGY welcomed him. "Before you say anything, Dr Yinsen called upon Protocol Confidence."

"Of course he did." He grumbled, eyes roving from one line of code to the next. The one Protocol they had to keep something from each other, and Yinsen pulled it out of the back drawer. "Then tell me everything you can, PEGGS."

"Dr Yinsen left on 16:30 pm two days ago in the company of SHIELD agent Philip Coulson," she informed promptly. "They left in a SHIELD issued helicopter. Two minutes and eleven seconds after they left the landing pad, Dr Yinsen activated Protocol Confidence and turned off all of my connections to his person. He used the negative field," PEGGY added, and he knew he wasn't imagining the hurt note in her voice. PEGGY was their baby, and Yinsen disconnecting from her reach was the most offensive thing he'd done to date.

"Do we have any indication to show that he was already being mind controlled? Changes in his behavior, scratch that, any changes of behavior in our employees that can't be explained with normal human reasons? Any energy spikes in the tower?" How long had Loki been on Earth, plotting and creating a web of minions? How many? Had his agenda changed?

Antal got inside the dusty elevator, vibrating inside the suit.

PEGGY had no answer to that, except that he had first been sighted while attacking the SHIED headquarters in New Mexico.

"That place again? I know for a fact that they have better bases around." Meaning they'd decided to keep their alien research all in one place. Lovely.

"Sir, Loki took Selvig as well. And Agent Barton."

Antal swore. "That's just perfect. Where's Agent Romanoff in the middle of this all?"

"Calcutta. Director's orders." PEGGY hesitated for a moment, never a good sign. "Sir, it appears Director Fury has taken measu-"

The elevator door's made a soft ding noise as they opened. He strode outside, walking quickly towards the main platform. Happy came up to him near the sofas.

"Iron Man! Where's Dr Yinsen?"

"Indisposed. Change of plans, I'll be taking his place. Is everything ready?" He asked shortly. Happy frowned. They had a good working relationship, he and Iron Man, as the two heads of Yinsen's security, and he wasn't dumb. He didn't ask any ridiculous questions.

(That he had been Anthony Jarvis' childhood friend was of no consequence, since Anthony had been dead for more than two decades.)

"What kind of danger is he in?"

Antal didn't falter. "The bad sci-fi movie kind. Is everything ready?" He repeated.

"Nearly. We're supposed to go online in fiftheen minutes."

"Make it five."

He nodded, already turning to his phone. "On it."

He'd seen the man by the windows, simply chosen not to acknowledge him. This is not the time to break his nose, this is not the time to kick his ass, he told himself firmly, and only then did he move to greet him.

"Agent Coulson, how terrible to see you. And I was having such a great day, too. I assume Fury sent you?"

Coulson came closer, perfectly straight suit in stern contrast with Yinsen's warm decorations. "Iron Man. You're to come with me after this business is finished. Sorry to interrupt your meeting with Miss Watson."

Antal gritted his teeth. "One, that's incredibly creepy, don't do that again. Two, stay the hell away from my kid's life. Three, hell no."

"I would think you of all people would understand the importance of godfather's in a child's life."

That was low. That was /low.

"Oh, you're so not doing this now. You lost all godfather rights when you left Mary behind in enemy territory."

He stared a Coulson's face, trying to catch any faked wince or gulp. He was too well trained for that, though, and his impassivity was even worse. The armor felt terribly hot, and the space in his palm under where his repulsers were itched.

Antal was trembling, from grief or rage or betrayal or something else altogether. But Iron Man did not tremble, and for that he was grateful.

"It was her wish that I leave her behind. As it was her wish that you continue being Iron Man."

Antal took a step closer, enjoying Coulson's fast, cautious look. "You-"

"We're ready to start." PEGGY interrupted at the same time Happy gestured from the platform adjacent to the penthouse's balcony.

"Stay still and don't snoop around." He told Coulson, if only for the sake of having the last word, before walking towards the balcony.

There's a growing body of people on the sidewalk, necks craned to watch Heart Tower light up and become the pinnacle of clean energy in the USA. His son was probably down there, fielding questions from his inquisitive soulmate.

He took the arc reactor Happy offered, holding it gingerly for a moment. Yinsen was the one supposed to be here, checking every last detail, fingers clenching and unclenching in excitement. It wasn't the first building HEART lit up, but it was the most powerful reactor so far, and he'd been working on getting it online for months.

After a moment he ordered "PEGGY, laser cutter" and dove in.

It was fast work: flying straight for the Atlantic Ocean, PEGGY showing him a GPS route for the pipeline transport underwater in the HUD screen. He hadn't been a big fan of being underwater since that time he fell over into the Danube, back when he was dying of palladium poisoning.

His brother had jumped after him and pulled him over. He was painfully aware that he was not now to save him, and of how much the armor weighted him down.

He called the tower, and soon enough Hogan's face appeared on the HUD screen. "Happy, how's it going?"

"The tech guys are cutting the connection to the transition lines. We're off the grid in one, two, three!"

And there it was, coming ever closer - H.E.A.R.T Tower glowing brighter than ever, one layer at a time, the spires and towers lighting up to their tips. Even the patterns shore with a fiercer blue. It was beautiful.

"PEGGY, record this. Yinsen is going to want to see it."

"Already on it."

He flew over back to the Tower, listening to PEGGY telling him about what she found while riffling through Coulson's phone. When he landed it was amidst cheers. His favorite sort of landing, but now wasn't the time to bask in the glory of his awesomeness.

Coulson was on the platform, wind buffeting his long face.

"So. What's this Avengers Initiative and why wasn't I invited to the party?"

 

-

_1997_

 

 

"Are you sure you don't want to uninvite someone? Anyone?" Clint asked, eyebrow cocked dubiously around and flicking one of the yellow balloons. It drifted off a bit before returning to his side. "Péter is two years old. He doesn't need so many people coming for a party he's not going to remember."

"Shut it, Barton, or you'll be the one uninvited." Mary threatened. She passed Antal the tray, moving glasses and dishes out of the way. "That's the last of the sandwiches. Is anyone here already?"

"Mrs. and Mr Laszlo are with with my mother. Apa is putting the finishing touches on the cake." There was only something missing. Antal looked around. "Who is with Péter?"

"Last I saw him Coulson went to change his diaper," Clint said. Antal nodded, smacked a kiss on Mary's cheek and went inside, careful to wipe his feet on the rug. Jakab had been cleaning around that morning and the day before, because cleaning was his therapeutic way to deal with people potentially coming inside the house. Antal would like to call bull - his brother usually took the excuse of years of brainwashing and finding autonomy as a reason to get away with being messy, but he couldn't in good conscience be angry at him for cleaning when anxious, as their mother had pointed out, when he had once liked to build weapons when stressed.

In his defense, it was only the one time and he'd been eleven. Not his proudest moment. He hoped Péter dealt with puberty better than him.

He found them in the greenhouse. It was Jakab's baby and Antal's design, so naturally it was both beautiful and brilliant, but the whole family loved it. The produce looked good, the flowers were blooming, the glass was at the perfect angle to maximize light and heat. There were chairs in the corners, some hid by ferns, others looking out at the many otter plants. One of them, a rocking chair they'd bought at an addiction, had a low table nearby for Péter to play at, and that was where he found his son. Coulson was sitting with him on the chair, feet on the table, looking surprisingly relaxed. There was no book in his hands, but he was speaking with the cadence of a story.

"-but The Cavalry was wilier than the foul beasts. They battled long and hard, but with a great thundering of hoofs and drawn weapons, the many-headed beast was finally laid down. Still to this day do the shield-bearers get warriors tell the story of how The Cavalry defeated the Poisonous Head with four men to their thirty."

"Are you telling my son SHIELD reports? Ugh. You're giving me flashback from reading the Beowulf."

He said, amused and smug when Péter lifted his arms to him and called "'pa! 'pa."

"Hey, pumpkin. Are you having fun with Uncle Agent? Is he boring you with his Anglo-Saxon poetry? Yes he is, yes he is."

Péter babbled. Coulson lifted an eyebrow, but not fast enough to hide the quirk of his lips. They were all putty in the kid's hands and he knew it.

Coulson jostled Péter, waving around the finger he had in a tight fist. Antal waved back and Péter giggled, that clumsy baby giggle of his. "Don't listen to your father, Péter, he has no appreciation for culture. You're lucky your mother and godfather have better taste"

Antal snorted, but conceded, because Mary actually liked Beowulf. He sat down on a stool. Outside was autumn, the trees already turned brown at the corners, but here was high summer. His shirt clung to his back, and Coulson was sweating around the neck.

The windows were thick and misted, just enough that they could hear the hum of conversations and watch the shapes of people walking around, bringing gifts and chatting.

"Mary said you're off to Ukraine after the party," he said. "Should I be worried?"

It was a moot question. He was always going to worry, just like Mary and his family worried when he put on the suit, like how he constantly worried for Péter. But Mary had been quieter lately, working later and coming home rarely, and he could deal with that, they both could, but Péter came first. He was starting to speak, and Antal dreaded the moment his kid was aware enough to ask him where Mom was.

Coulson frowned, only for a moment. Someone, probably his mother, turned on the radio. Old jazz vibrated down the glass walls, a far-away heartbeat. "Perhaps. But not yet."

Antal sighed and looked down at his peaceful son. "No, you're right. Not yet."

  
-

  
_2012_

 

 

  
"Dad? Apa?"

"Sorry, sorry, the connection isn't very good."

"Where are you? We saw you flying away. Is everything alright."

"I'm--PEGGY, where are we?--some hundred miles from Greenland. Something has come up. Listen, are you home?"

"MJ and I are on our way back."

"Good. Go home and stay there. Follow Measure MIB."

"Measure MIB-- Apa, what's going on? Are you alright?"

"I'm peachy kid, don't worry about me. Tell your May and Ben not to leave the house, call your uncle, you know the drill. If it looks like it's about to get bad, call cousin Chuck. And for the love of everything, stay away from the Tower."

"If something fishy starts going on I want to help."

"I know you do, kid. That's why I'm asking you to research anything you can find about the object called Tesseract.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

"Is he seriously looking at the camera like he's in The Office?" He asked incredulously.

"Of course you watch The Office," Coulson mumbled. He didn't mumble so much as speak pointedly in a low tone, but for him it counted as a mumble.

Antal glared at him. Antal had been glaring at him since Ag- actually, he didn't deserve to be Agent, just Coulson - had ambushed him when bringing Loki in. He'd been all ready to get the info about Yinsen and take off into the sunset to save him, but Coulson was under the impression that he had some sot of control over Thor. Which, okay, they got along alright. Antal had been a teacher for years, the official neighborhood tutor long before moving to the States, he knew how to talk to angsty arrogant youths, not least of all because he'd been one of them.

Coulson, as much as he hated to admit it, which he did, might have a point. But there was also another reason why he meant to ditch the helicarrier, and that reason was staring at the screen while Loki insulted him.

Antal might not have thought this through.

Well, no. Antal had thought of exactly thirty seven scenarios of how this could turn out. Somehow none of them had prepared him, an annoying inability that he disliked very much.

It seemed like he'd get away with it for a time,

("Iridium?"

"It's a stabilizing agent. Means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

"When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night. Am I the only one who did the reading? Seriously, class, pay attention."

"Professor János, this isn't your classroom."

"Of course it isn't, my kids would never be playing Galagos during an alien invasion. Can't say the same about your agents."

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect. Wouldn't put it past him."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor."

"Finally, someone who speaks english. Alright, let's play.")

Until:

"Blueberry?"

That was what ruined it.

It had become an habit to keep a duplicate of Peter's school snack in his pockets, in case he was hungry, or more likely, inc are he noticed that he'd been hungry for hours and kissed another meal. As corny as it was, fatherhood kept him on a strict schedule, gave meaning and rhythm to his life, and besides, he could hardly go around flying the suit without proper nourishment. It had been part of the Agreement, between him and Ho, that mother hen, back in those early days. So he kept granola bards and fruit slices around, sometimes an apple or an orange. This time it was blueberries. He wouldn't be surprised if his subconscious had had an hand in it: it was really a stupid mistake to make, and he didn't make mistakes, much less stupid ones. Well, he did, but not like this.

Time for containing damage. Go big or go home, as they said. "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met, I'm--"

"I know who you are," Robert Bruce Banner said. His hands were slack and he was blinking very fast. "You're-

 

 

 

_1987_

 

\--Anthony Edwin Jarvis, pleasure to meet you. And you're Robert Bruce Banner."

Robert Bruce Banner --rolled off the tongue easily, it was what Dad called a strong name -- did something very strange with his shoulders. It was like he was trying to use them to hide and defend himself at the same time. It didn't seem very efficient, but it wouldn't be very polite to tell him that.  
And Dad had asked him not to try not and shock anyone on his first day, so he was going all friendly here. Happy had helped him with the simulations.

Banner looked down on the paper he was holding and frowned. "Is this room 616?"

Banner was still on the doorway. Should he pull him inside? He was going to pull him inside. Maybe some reassurance first, thought: "Yeah. Don't worry, I'm not a stalker. It's on the list downstairs. I've read your paper on genetic physics of hereditary reactions, by the way, it's really good. A bit negative, though."

"Hereditary problems usually are," he pointed out. Banner still wasn't very far into the room, but it wasn't like it was a very big room to start with. He'd have to see if he could find a better space for him bigger experiments. "And it was a school essay, not a paper."

"Essays are the baby version of academic papers," he pointed out. He wasn't going to agree with something he didn't like just to be friendly to his new roommate, and he actually liked to argue, but maybe Banner didn't. That would be boring, but bearable. He didn't seem angry, however. Potential debate buddy? A theory to explore. A wonderful theory. He'd been hungering for one of those since he could remember.

He should change the subject. He didn't even have to try very hard, because Banner started to pull his suitcase inside. It was rather worn, and much smaller than his own three suitcases and four moving boxes, all of them overflowing. Dad and Anya had left already, to get their things from the hotel and return home. They'd spent the last weekend exploring Pasadena, squeezing in some family time before classes began, and it had been fun.

He wasn't homesick already. Totally not missing his parents, they'd been gone for like a day, it didn't work like that. But still. Robert Bruce had arrived just now, he could tell by the muddled hair from sleeping on a bus, and alone, and he couldn't imagine that, really, couldn't imagine not going away to college with advice and hugs and a small suitcase full of knitted socks.

He made some space in his bed and sat down, giving the other boy space to explore. Banner was looking around. He prodded a finger on a crack in the beige wall and looked out of the window to check out the view. They got most of the back of another dorm, but to the right they could see some grass. He looked like the type to appreciate some grass.

"You can put your bags wherever. They grouped together the boy geniuses, in some misguided attempt to negate our effects. I don't think that's going to work, do you? It was either you or some guy named Sterns. Anyway, I picked the bed by the wall, I hope you don't mind but I'm not moving."

"I don't mind," Robert Bruce Banner admitted.

He took a proper look at his roommate. He had a soft voice and wore a purple suit he was immediately jealous off. Very cool Einstein vibes there. Also, it worked well with him, unlike Him who looked like a blueberry whenever he wore one.

"Anthony,"

"Just call me Tony, everyone does," he interrupted. "Expect Anya, she calls me Antal. And Dad calls me Anthony, like my godfather and godmother. But I always thought it would be cool to be called Tony. Don't you think?"

"Mm." Bruce said, which wasn't either an agreement or a disagreement.

"Do you want be to cal, you something specific?" He asked with a bust of inspiration. "Your name is pretty cool, but a bit long, so Robert,"

"No Robert." He said forcefully. It was at odds with his neat suit and shy demeanor, and he liked him better for it. "Please."

"Alright." he agreed easily, with enough tact to ignore how he relaxed. "What about Rob, is that okay? Bruce? Or, Blueberry! Because of your clothes. They're purple, not blue, but I've never seen a blue blueberry. Also, blueberries are delicious."

Rob Blueberry Bruce squinted. He was scrubbing his glasses with the half-minded determination of a nervous tick. "If you have to to," he conceded with a sigh.

Tony grinned, finally jumping from the bed. He'd been careful not to do it before. The book he'd found on physical cues said personal space was important in new environments and he hadn't wanted to scare off Rob Blueberry Bruce, but now that they were on first name basis he offered his hand. They were both clammy and with calluses, and for a moment their eyes met and they smiled at each other, feeling very adult and slightly less scared of it.

"Want to buy some blueberries and sneak into the labs to analyze them? I bet we can make something with them. Purple ink! Explosive purple ink!"

Bruce looked at him for a long moment before nodding. "Only if you give me a better theory for genetic reactions."

"Deal." They shock on it again, with much less reservation.

Oh yeah, he was good at this. He could totally make friends in college. He and Rob Bruce were going to get along great, he could already tell.

 

 

 

  
_2012_

 

His hand, the one without the blueberries, twitched. Decades of not hearing that name, and it was all he did: curl his fingers, not like a fist but enough for sweat and calluses to touch. It was enough.

"You were dead. I spent one hour waiting my turn in the rented suits store, because you were dead."

He had the sudden urge to put on the helmet and never get out of the armor again. "Yeah. That had to suck. A lot."

"It did. A lot," Bruce agreed pleasantly. It had been years, but he was pretty sure his eyes had never been that shade of green before. That would be the other guy, then. "They said your injuries were so bad it had to be a closed casket burial. And I believed them. Because my best friend was dead, and I'd spent one hour waiting at a rented suits store that smelled of cat piss, and they said your injuries were bad enough that it had to be a closed casket burial."

Then, he added, like an addendum at the end of an academic paper, "your father was crying."

Antal did not take a step back. He wanted, but he didn't. "It wasn't like I was having a blast while that was going on," he argued, feeling defensive. "Let me tell you, waterboarding is not fun with a car motor in your chest. -4/10 would recommend."

"Waterboarding?" Bruce asked. He was definitely green around the grills. His eyes brightened, that brilliant mind of his churning up a dozen theories and discarding them in moments.

Oh, he'd missed this, had missed him so damn much.

"It was Yinsen, wasn't it?" Bruce guessed. "Ho Yinsen stops answering the phone, that nosy Jarvis kid gets his nose where it doesn't belong. People don't like that, there's Afghanistan," he moved his hands around, wildly off course, probably without a course, "and of course you're Iron Man. A flying knight. You, you idiotic, reckless, Thomas Malory groupie," he accused inanely, pointing a finger at him.

"Ha!" Antal made a sound between a snort and a sob, trembling all over. He threw around a hand too, leaning on his toes, leaning towards his friend, oh lord, "oh please, like you're any better. You memorized fucking Ivanhoe, you Walter Scott Stan, you big Einstein purple nerd."

Bruce growled. He did that sometimes, usually during exam season. People would say Antal was insane, probably, but he wasn't even feeling a ping of fear on his self-defense aware. Even if he was now one of the banes of exam season himself.

Rogers, however, had better instincts. Or maybe he was just a spoilsport. He stepped up, putting a hand up, trying for conciliatory and ending up in commanding. Antal should spare some pity for him, poor guy had to be confused, but he really, really didn't care right now.

"Dr. Banner, calm do--"

"Oh, you really don't want to do that. He hates when he's told to calm down. Remember Oxford, the talk, Derenik Zadian's--"

"Forward Thought Conference," he completed, breathing hard. "Yes. Your parents took us. We tested every scone in a fifty miles radio. That tea house by the Thames kicked us out because we're arguing about mechanical forces foo loudly."

Antal's face morphed into a smile all on its own. "I still say the Rayley's were the superior," then a grin, sharp and bright, "their blueberry was the best."

Bruce crumpled. It was a careless, fast change; it looked how Antal felt. His eyes softened and his shoulders lowered and he wasn't sure which one of them moved first suddenly there were warm arms around Antal and they were holding on for dear life.

"Missed you, buddy," he whispered.

"Don't you dare do this again?" hissed against his shoulder. There were fingers denting his shirt and digging into the flesh beneath, but he didn't care, he didn't care, because his friend was here, Rob Bruce Blueberry, his nerd in purple, was here. "Don't you dare, I can't --"

"I won't. Scientist's honor, I'm not going away again, Bruce," he promised fiercely. "They'll have to find a deeper cave than the last one for that."

His friend's arms only tightened his around him, a safe prison. Antal smothered a sob, laughed, hid his face on his neck.

It felt just like it had the last time.

 

 

  
"Iron Man? Seriously?

"Hush, you. It was either that or Modern Knight, and while I like it, it just doest have the same ring, does it?"

"Oh God," Bruce laughed.

"I named a robot after you, you know?"

Rob frowned, trying to guess. His friend's eyes widened, lips pulling up on an incredulous smile. "ROB-0T? The lenses-cleaner? Seriously?"

He shrugged unashamedly. "Always meant to build one of those, to be honest. The time wasted on the manual maintaining of a regular pair of glasses is ridiculous. It wasn't just out of the kindness of my heart, though. You're not the only one wearing glasses now." He slid his blocky glasses down his nose and scrunched it.

They were alone in the lab, computer screen lit up around them. The others had left, Fury with a clipped 'as heartwarming as this reunion is, and it really isn't, we all have better things to do with our time. János and Banner included, find me that scepter.' Now it was just them and a quest for a magical artifact, soon to be defeated by the wonders of science.

It was just like old times. Almost.

There was much unsaid between them, and Antal was nearly bursting with questions. It wasn't even that it wasn't the time and place, he'd never much cared for things like that, but for once he didn't quite know how to start.

"So. I'd say a fan of how you turn into a big green version of your anger issues, but I don't think you'll be very pleased about that?" He offered cautiously. Bruce was defensive for a moment, shoulders hunching up, before he relaxed. Remembering the way things had been between them, the teasing and bantering and million inside jokes.

They'd come to the conclusion that the energy readings, while not deviating from Selvig's reports, would take five days at best. Three on PEGGY, but that an ace he was keeping up his sleeve for now.

Bruce was busy checking on the scepter, scanning the gamma radiation every other minute, but his eyes kept twitching towards him. Antal, who was having the same problem while trying to focus on the monitors. It wasn't like he couldn't multitask on six different things at the same time, it was that he really didn't want to turn around and find out Bruce had disappeared.

"You'd say that. From you, I can almost believe it," he said dryly. Antal didn't remember him speaking like that about himself. Self-depreciating, yes, humble but not as much as he seemed. Some of it had been a show, most of it had been his father's fault. There was an undercurrent of self-hatred in him now, and Antal had the sudden understanding that has strange and convoluted his life had turned out to be, Bruce's had gone through rougher roads.

"Hey, none of that now. You have never hurt anyone deliberately, I know you haven't. Harlem was all on Ross, the great dick, and you haven't had an accident in sixteen months."

"Have you been tracking me? Why do I even ask, of course you have," Bruce grumbled almost harshly. He chuckled, low and bitter. "Can't really blame you for not getting close."

Antal leaned forcefully on his chair. It rolled closer towards Bruce, "What, no! Believe me, Blueberry Bruce, I'd have gone for you. I should have," he said seriously, "there's really no excuse for that, except that I was in Budapest when Harlem went down, and then with all the agencies looking for you, it would have brought undue attention. Hell, they gave you enough attention already, their trails were a mess to unwind." A mess he'd had lots of fun with, in truth. He didn't really need Ho's permission to go hacking the main government agencies in the world, but it was always nice to have his friend and boss giving the a-okay.

"You hacked the government?" Bruce asked, eyebrows nearly to his curls. He'd always had the best curls, even now that his hair was a lighter brown and near grey in his temples.

"Duh." Duh, mouthed Bruce, incredulous. Antal ignored him. "I wasn't going to let them get to my first science buddy."

He'd meant for it to be flippant, but by Bruce's softening stare, it came out sentimental. His chest did something complicated and confusing that tightened his stomach.

Down, boy, he told himself. This wasn't the time for indulging in his teenage crush on his best friend. Even if his smile was soft and his hair was adorable and Antal hadn't seen him in person in decades, decades spent hacking on servers and reading papers and sending anonymous care packages to whatever sorry part of the world he was hiding in.

"I wouldn't expect you too," Bruce whispered. He obviously meant it utterly, and Antal reared back, puffed up. As if there was any possibility of him doing anything else but help him.

Ah. So maybe he wasn't really over that crush.

"Nonsense," he said, in that way he knew thickened any lingering British accent passed on from his father, "What are roommates for?"

Bruce huffed. It was a fond huff, so Antal didn't worry. Feeling bold, he tilted his head to the side and offered: "Want to come with me to HEART. Not to brag, but it's the best place on earth." He wiggled his fingers invitingly. "I have my own workshop and everything. For the suits, when I'm not teaching. It's a bit empty, only me and the bits and PEGGY. You'd fit right in."

Bruce shifted slightly, rubbing his neck. "That sounds like something we used to dream of," he said, not mama ting to mask the longing in his voice. "Wouldn't want to break it."

Antal almost snorted, but that would give him away. Instead he took the miniature electrical prod he kept with himself near the snacks for reasons that had nothing to do with Dr Who cosplay, shut up Ben his mother had knit him that scarf, and poked him. It was a small discharge, but enough for Bruce to jump and stare at him with wounded eyes.

"Ow!"

"Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm proving a point here. You're not a monster, you're not our of control, you're not going to break out dream workshop."

"Are you nuts?" Rogers asked as he crossed the threshold, scowl firmly in place.

"No, I'm his friend," he said without looking away from Bruce. "I'm not scared of you, Robbie. I never was, and I've seen you in the mornings after a three day science bender. The Hulk has nothing on that." Quieter, words kept between them, "you don't need to tiptoe around me, buddy."

"Clearly I do, if you keep using that screwdriver," Bruce grouched. And yeah, that had been a pretty shitty thing to do, but he knew from experience that it was better to get his point across with Bruce before he set himself on stupid, self-flagellating patterns. Those were no fun to anyone. "And please don't tell me I should strut, that line was terrible in the 80s and it's terrible now."

"It's not a screwdriver," he protested without heat, "and you are great at strutting, big guy, I've missed your strutting style."

"Do you take anything seriously?" Rogers asked. He'd been strangely silent so far, and only now did Antal turn the chair around to catch the glimpse of something muddled and sad in his face before it was wiped away with a glare. Aimed at him, actually. "Behavior like that is irresponsible, even if you're reunited soulmates."

He and Bruce blinked at each other, astonished, and moved to the side at the same time, spluttering. He scratched his neck and bit his cheek. He hadn't realized how close they had been, but then again they'd always had a knack for drifting to each other.

"We're not soulmates," an embarrassed Bruce said. "Just old friends." He cleared his throat and looked down at the glasses he was rubbing viciously, trying and falling to disappear into the ether.

Antal wasn't offended, or hurt, or blushing. He was too old for blushing. Definitely over the blushing phase.

"Look, Cap," he started, to save them all. Coulson might kill him if Steve Rogers kneeled over out of mortification in his presence. "I take this very seriously. My boss is being kept as a mind-captive by a cube from outer space," and just saying the world destroyed the rest of embarrassment and left his cold and angry. Ho Yinsen of all people, to be a prisoner again. "I wonder, though, how much thought you're giving this whole mess."

He had straightened his glasses and using his best teaching voice. It caught Rogers attention, he could tell. All that military posture aside he wasn't that old. Antal had no idea how long he'd studied for, considering he'd lived during the Depression, but he'd respected Erskine and from all accounts he'd been a prime possessor of the knowing-professor look. He doubted anyone could get one over Charles Xavier on that, and he didn't want to try but it was useful sometimes.

The captain's shoulders stiffened further. Antal would bet he could use a massage or a thousand. "I do not appreciate you doubting me."

"It's not you I doubt right now, even if you're not totally out of the woods there. You seem awfully eager to follow along Fury's plan, whatever that is. He could have called us earlier, saved us a lot of trouble and saved lives in Stuttgart. He's been putting the Avengers Initiative in place for a long while now. Why now? What isn't he telling us?"

"You think there's a secret involved?"

Antal swallowed and thought of a plane going down and the empty casket that was all he and his son had of his wife. "There are always secrets involved with Fury," he said, slower and softer than he usually spoke. Bruce blinked at him, a question in his face, and Antal shock his head.

"What do you think, Robbie?"

Rogers turned ti him too, and Bruce looked down for a moment before staring at them, somber. "The way Loki spoke of a warm light for all of mankind." It was easy to read him, even now, and Antal picked up on his thought process easily.

"Oh, of course. That would be H.E.A.R.T's Headquarters."

Rogers, for whatever reason, brightened. "Oh, that place that looks like a glass palace? I've been there before, for the photograph exposition."

It had been Peter's idea. An exposition of candid's from the 20s and 30's, many of them personal photos people had offered to be shown. He had spent hours calling Jakab to natter on about it, because Yinsen was too busy and apparently Antal had the aesthetic appreciation of a lump of metal. Very rare synthetic metal alloy, but not very good at debating the merits of lighting and zooming angles.

He maintained that they were art snobs who enjoyed looking down on others.

"--will run itself for what, an year?" Bruce was saying.

"For now, yes. It's the first in America, we're still settling all the details with the local energy companies." He frowned. "My best guess if that's why SHIELD contacted Yinsen. He's the world's expert on self sustaining energy." Curiously enough, so was he, but he didn't go around advertising that fact.

Antal wasn't bitter about that. He was bitter, however, that the guy he was supposed to be protecting and having family dinners with had failed to inform him that he was in talks with S.H.I.E.L.D.

He clapped his hands. "Only one way to find out. My description programmer should be ready  
to give us a pick at, oh, all of SHIELD's files in a quarter of an hour."

"Could you repeat that?" Regards requested, without sounding at all like a request.

He was trying to come up with a way to refer PEGGY that wouldn't be emotionally damaging to the captain when Hill came by the door.

"János. The prisoner is asking for you."

That was so incredibly unsurprising. "I'll be right there. Unless you want me to make him wait? Any interrogation tips for the newbie?"

Hill gave him a severe look before offering, "just be yourself. Hopefully it will horrify him into letting him slip something."

Roger's smothered a grin and even Bruce chuckled.

"That was a good one, Hill," he conceded, starting to get up. Bruce got up as well, quickly sobering.

"You can't face him. You'll be alone," he argued. His eyebrows were drawing closer together, creases in between.

Antal couldn't remember the last time someone had asked him not to put himself in danger. Peter never asked him to change, for good or for ill, only that he come home, and Mary had understood. She'd always understood.

Bruce understood as well, better than he did. Antal stepped closer, holding his shoulders lightly.

"It's going to be alright, buddy. It's not my first rodeo against this space hipster."

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

  
The soul is dead. What now  
But to stumble, half-living, staggering to survive,  
feel  
choose  
choose wretchedly, wildly, madly, freely?

The soul is dead and the body  
Is blind, deaf, with hands that reach forwards—  
The past is dust at our backs, its shadow  
A dark shuddering ghost.

The soul died and the body withered and the mind  
That dear starving creature  
Awakened in a bed of smoke. It turned forward,  
Eyes glimpsing that breathless skywards glimpse—  
Of chrome, water, colorless glass—  
The profile of a poet turned  
Towards the black and purple promise of tomorrow.

 

_Maria Santiago Stark, 1953, Post-War Anthology_

 

 

 

 

"But in terms of social paradigms and cultural shifts, the greatest causality of the Second World War was the concept of the Soul.

A similar crisis had taken place scant years before, after the First Great War, when thousands of thousands of lives were lost, and a whole generation of young men was lost. What followed was a wave of sudden illnesses, suicides and wide-spread trauma among civilians, the echo of the soldier's experiences projected upon their Soulmates.

Faith, superstition and medicine all falter in the face of the reality: even ignoring the supposed 4% percent of the Markless, who at the time were so taboo as to not be part of comventional statistics, and the 38% of people born with one or more Faded Words, the remaining 60% either die in the war or feel their effects. Never was the Soulmate Link more nocive to the individual and general society in recent years; the only comparable incidents in western history are afttermath of the Thirty Year War and the Black Plague, though the First World War detaches itself from either period because of its relatively short period of time.

Something similar happen after the Second War, with different results. the Eastern Block took the concept of the Soul of a Nation to mobilize a revolution already in the works, post WWI Germany turned towards the creation of an new identity masked as the rebirth of older values [...].

The gradual shift in public opinion demanded a scape goat, found in minorities - Jews, Rromani, homosexuals, mutants, Markless. These last were the first targets, although the numbers were already greatly diminished: the long held practice of using Markless as cannon fodder had lead to a focused, premeditated destruction of this minority in most of Europe, the intricacies and legalized horror of which have yet to be completely understood [...].

The numbers themselves were widely different, and speak for themselves: in 1939, in the beginning of the Second War, the amount of Faded Words registered in military files go from the 38% percent of the previous war to a striking 76%. Of the 4% Markless ordered by law to forcefully enlist in both sides of the conflict, only 1.7% were recorded.*  
Of those, only 0.2% would outlast this conflict."

  
_Excerpt from Darcy Lewis' thesis, "Empty Words: The End Of The Soulmate Mythos In The 20th Century"._

  
*Although, recent research supposes that a further 2% of the population were Unmarked that had managed to pass as Marked. Bibliographic reference: J. Grey's The Wordless Cry Out

 

 

 

_2004_

 

 

His father had told him that the men of his family did not cry.

That was a fallacy, of course, because Antal had not been part of his family, and because always been a soft child, eager for praise and attention and affection, as all children were. His father had loathed that weakness with a passion, for what it represented as much as for what it was. He could not bear to think that he had a weak son. Luckily, Antal hadn't known that then, and took the coldness of this familiar stranger with mild annoyance. He'd never given Mr Stark much thought, besides being terribly impressed by his creations and angry at how his lifestyle disappointed his parents, until he'd told him that.

Only once, when his other father- the true one, the one that counted- had sent him looking for him. Antal remembered how annoyed he'd been. The day after was to be his eleventh's birthday, and he'd been in the phone with a friend talking about the party. But his true father had been pale and worried, so Antal and complained and put on his shoes to look for the wayward Mr Stark.

He'd found him drunk out of his ass, sitting down by the door of Mrs Stark's ridiculously expensive mausoleum. Antal had loved to use that place for hide and seek as a child, until his mother-the true one, not the stone one- had realized that was where he went to and told him not to play there.

Mr. Stark hadn't seen him coming. Antal hadn't known what to do.

"Oh, it's you. Fucking great."

Antal had looked at him and been angry, but then he'd seen how red his eyes were and how he was sprawled out on the marble and he'd felt bad for Mr Stark. He'd said: "My Dad was looking for you."

Mr Stark had said: "Tell Jeeves to bloody well leave me alone."

Antal had bitten his lip not to answer smart. He'd asked, "what was she like?", because maybe it was the sort of thing you asked about someone's dead wife, but mostly because he's fairly sure his father wouldn't want him to leave Mr Stark alone like this.

Mr Stark had said: " She was a poet. Not one of those stuffy ones. She did the same thing with words that I do with elements, but she managed to be a decent person at the same time. Never quite managed that myself, but she, she was a bitch and an artist and the best damn person on this shit planet. And now she's dead and Jarvis is looking for me and you're here. Fuck irony."

Then he'd turned around and emptied his stomach on the mausoleum marble steps. Antal had stepped close, looking for his handkerchief in his pockets. It had his initials sewed by his kit her' artful stitches, A. E. J.

Mr. Stark had cleaned his face and looked up at him with those terrible red eyes.

Antal hadn't realized a drunk could be so fast. In the next moment Mr Stark's hands had his shoulders in a terrible grip, meaty fingers ruining the handkerchief.

"I'm not crying," he'd hissed. "You hear me? I'm not crying, and neither are you. Stark men don't cry."

Then he'd let go. He'd tossed the handkerchief to the floor and given one last gulp of his silver pocket bottle and stumbled his way to his big lonely mansion.

That was when Antal knew.

He was a grown man now, and a father himself, and he cried. Not often, not easily, but sometimes frustration mounted and sometimes nightmares went after him awake and asleep. Sometimes he saw movies and he cried like a baby. Not even sad movies, but Marley&Me and Star Trek. Not Titanic.

And sometimes he hid in the bathroom and cried his eyes out because he would never see Mary again and their son would never know her. He spent an unordinary amount of time hiding in bathrooms, actually.

His mother was on the other side of the door. He could tell by the way she had knocked, and how she stayed there. He could hear her breathing from outside; it helped having something to focus his own breathing on.

Apa was probably with Péter. Fuck, this had to be confusing for the kid. It wasn't like it a real loss for him, shit, but it was fucked up–.

He had ripped his shirt without thinking about it and now it was hanging open, some buttons scattered on the bathroom tiles. He was going to have to sew those later--.

His chest was hurting. His chest was in always always in fucking pain, but this was more than the chronic pain or a panic attack. His mind was a mess, tangled in the complicated memories he preferred to put aside most days and left his shaken and brittle the others.

This was supposed to be a good night. He was going to put on the suit and celebrate ten years of being Iron Man, ten years of having created something changed the world for the better, something that was his, even if few others in the world knew it.

It wasn't even that surprising. Typical Howard Stark, kneeling over on the anniversary of his competition's creation.

He was sad. Why was he even sad? What was there even to grieve? Some asshole old man an ocean away kneeled dead. They were nothing to each other. Nothing, less than dirt, you fucking excuse for a human being get up--

"Come in." He gasped.

Anya cracked the door open carefully. The lower lights of the hallway covered in shadow, making the white in her hair stand out more. "Oh, my darling," she whispered.

She sat down on the ground beside him. He could see her skin raising with goosebumps from the cold, beneath her garters.

Softly, slowly, she put her arms around him. Antal shuddered, and hid his face in the crook of her shoulder. His fists unfurled, to hold her hand in his.

She was so small, a bit like a bird. He focused on her wrinkly skin, smooth from many years of rose water and oils. His other mother had used those two, and he remembered watching them both doing that routine, one with expensive products, the other with thick creams to keep the chilblains at bay in winter.

"I don't know why --," he stopped, breathed out a sob. "I don't care. He never cared, why should I care?" A laugh got out of him. It was short and bitter and jostled his chest terribly, but he breathed the pain through his nose and tightened his hold in her hand.

"I mean, he nearly got himself assassinated and I saved his life, we had to leave everything behind--I'm not complying, I got a fucking brother out of the deal, Jakab is great. But I just. I know he wouldn't care if it were me dead."

"He would care," she said with surety. He turned his head to look at her, surprised by the ferocity in her voice. "Whatever else you think, don't doubt that he would care. He did care, Antal."

"Just not enough," he said, and it came out too hurt to be bitter.

His mother had nothing to say to that. He closed his eyes and leaned on her and tried to make the pain in his chest go away.

 

 

 

_2012_

 

 

"You give us all a bad name, you know?" Antal asked.

Loki stared at him, disgust twisting his features. Only faintly, wouldn't want humans to think he was bothered enough to despise them. It wasn't a pretty expression, but it looked like it fit in his face.

"What shared plural do you suppose exists between us, mortal?"

"The adopted 'we'," he answered easily. "The shared bond of every child with parents that took them one despite not being theirs."

Loki was a burst of color in the cage, his gold and black armor striking against the green cape. He had style, he'd give him that. Although, no style could help with his wan skin, or the way he bared his lips. Animalistic and just an inch away from a snarl.

"Thing is, you got the orphan jackpot, basically," he went on, not the least intimidated. Angry Norse gods had nothing on a furious Ana Jarvis. "You literally became a prince. I mean, an actual prince from the greatest power in the Nine Realms. Sure, Odin's a dick, Asgardian society is fucked up if you're not a beefy jock, but Frigga is wonderful, and your brother loves you. You had the best of educations, the freedom to become nearly anything you wanted.Hell, you could have proved them all wrong, if it bothered you that much!"

This was something that had seriously bothered him for a while. He knew perfectly well that not everyone was as lucky with their parents as he was, much less considering they weren't related by blood. Loki had a whole other pile of baggage to deal with involving the ethics of a jottün baby being raised as Aesir royalty, but they weren't, on a fundamental level, all that different, in circunstances and, he coukd admit it, even in character. But only to a point. Nurture versus nature and all that shit.

Yet somehow Antal had lucked out. Another person would say it was humbling, but it only made him upset, itching to understand. This was why he didn't like psychology.

"You're wrong." Loki said. His words were deliberate, slick with insidious purpose. Antal supposed an evil drawl was requisite for the Lie-smith, silvertongue gig. "Asgard was nought but a prison, gilded and stifling. They cared nothing for me, the trophy-toy. I have reached the fullness of me potential despite them, and it is greater than Asgard could ever imagine."

He smiled, but it flickered for half a breath when he heard Antal laugh.

"Oh, please. What does a spoiled prince like you know of prisons?" He closed his eyes and Afghanistan came to life behind his lids, a collections of impressions. Damp and thin soup, fingers fumbling with metal, metal slipping from fingers, the aching lack in his chest. A sleep that was a short death. Red sand, red blood.

The fear, and the feeling of rust growing in his innards, and the friend beside him.

"More than you can hope to understand," Loki said, chin tilted up.

"Perhaps," he conceded."Could be. Its not like you've been chatty about where you've been the last, oh, two years? And the you come back to Midgard. A good enough platform to attack Asgard, I suppose, but it seems an awful lot of trouble if that's what you're going for."

Loki said nothing, only smiled his sly smile. They looked at each other from different sides of the glass in silence. He'd turned off the bluetooth Fury had given him, like hell was he going to follow his lead on this.

His eyes were crinkled in a mockery of a smile. "A lot of trouble, but worth it. I have had quite a time educating your lord in the place of a prisoner."

Antal leaned on the glass wall, hands casually in his pockets. No one could see his fists shake there. He was grinning as well, but his smile did not reach his eyes.

"Oh, I don't doubt you'll have your work cut out for you. Yinsen has always been an eager student, but he's always been better at teaching." When he was sure his hand wasn't trembling he waved a lazy arm around, "he's not my lord, if that's what you're wondering."

"Is he not? My mistake. It was my understanding that he was your leader and you his loyal retainer. Why else would a man such as you allow himself to be so greatly overshadowed, if not obligation?"

Ah. If he thought he going to won with that play, he had another thing coming.

Antal shrugged easily. "Eh, the job has its perks. But then again, I'm not surprised you don't understand. Can't imagine you've ever known friendship without jealously. Glory triumphs all things, no?"

He crossed his ankles, and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Really, with a mindset like that it's no wonder you weren't a hit with the other kids. Not really charming, the whole taking over the world thing. Or maybe it was just your personality. It's okay, I've been told I rub people the wrong way too."

Loki's eyes burning with a cold disdain. It wasn't even hatred; it was a perspective in which he had an inherent lack of value. Antal lifted his eyebrows. He had the unblemished skin to show for his unworthiness, and Loki didn't have much on human's destruction of their own kind.

"Nothing? Well then, I'm done here." He turned on his heels.

"Do you truly think you can defeat me?" Loki asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Do you really think I do not know of your son, your brother? They will be ash on the wind when I'm done with them, and you helpless to to stop me."

The thought of Loki anywhere near Peter burned his from the inside so strongly he thought he was having heartburn. But Loki kept on slithering closer, soaking softly, so softly. "How can it end in any other way? One of the Soulless like you - you've tried to redeem your nature, and for what? You are unworthy. You have always known that."

He and Mjolnir had an agreement. He could lift her with the armor, but not with the gloves. He wondered if it had something to do with the arc reactors. He wondered, sometimes, what it said about Iron Man, and Antal János. And the difference between them.

"It matters not what metal you wear and name you call yourself, what youths you teach and paltry wonders created. You are unworthy of all your treasures, Mother's Grief."

  
He stilled; it was a struggle not to turn around and pound on the glass, surge backwards so their noses were almost touching. He could blow up the glass and wring that pale alien neck. He was strikingly, sickeningly aware that the others were watching on the lab.

He hated himself for how his first thought was oh lord they know I have no words.

He wouldn't give Loki the satisfaction. He wouldn't let Bruce believe him and his whispered horrors. His back straightened, hands holding themselves against his tailbone. A servant's posture, the one he'd learned by following his father around as a child. It was only after that he realized military men held themselves the same way, but in Edwin Jarvis there had been no difference.His was a humble bravery.

Antal was Ana's son as well. His fire was of a bolder, brasher sort, and he had no shame in it.

"Good luck with that. We mortals have the annoying habit of helping ourselves. It's our superpower, you see."

He walked out of the room, striding over towards the lab without stopping. He wanted to out on his suit and fly away, find his family and free Yinsen and return to the stupid smoothie place, but he didnt want to think about the metal pressing close to him, not now that his skim itched like it wanted to crawl away from him.

"You're up next," he told Natasha. Natasha, who had once on a quiet New Year's night showed his the patch of scars in her back where her souk-mark had been seared away. She knew about him, of course. Fury as well, it was on his unofficial file. He and Bruce were on the same boat. Rogers probably had some archaic ideas, but having met him he had a hard time believing him that he would be the sort to lynch babies for being born without Words.

Still. You never knew how people would react. That was the problem. Everyone knew what was said about the Unmarked.

In this day and age, the recriminations were different, but the basic facts remained the same. Ultrasounds made it an even more difficult question, even ignoring the whole religious and moral debate involved.

Fact: In the US of A, 57% of suicides were Unmarked.

Fact: the Unmarked were 62% more likely to suffer from complications, both physical or mental. Studies were inconclusive on whether this was a case of consequence and reaction to the way they were treated or an part ingrained of their nature.

Fact: despite the incredible progress in medical care and knowledge, 87% of mothers of Unmarked children died of complications related to labor. The average survival rate was of mothers of Unmarked children was thirteen months after birth. All of the surviving mother suffered from post-partum depression. 65% of the surviving mothers committed suicide.

In the end, Maria Collins Carbonelli Stark was just another number lost on the statistics.

Loki wasn't supposed to know about her. No one was. Goodness knew Howard Stark had gone to great lengths to keep her death under wraps.

"You okay, Janós?" She asked in a low tone when he approached her place on the corridor. He nodded once, stiffly.

"Just peachy, Romanoff. Do me a favor and screw with his crazy brain, would you?"

She smirked, red and terrible. "Already meant to."

When he got to the lab, Bruce was sharing his attention between the readings and the scepter. He settled back on his chair, pushing his feet on the ground and swiveling around until something made it stop.

"Where's Rogers?"

"Left a while ago, seemed bothered about something."

Antal sighed. He was bothered by more than one thing. "Please don't ask me if I'm okay, Nat just did that and it would be too weird for the two of you to say the same thing."

Bruce gauged him, making him remember that he'd been acting as a Doctor in dire conditions for years now. After a moment he tool off his feet and let him finish the circuit, this time slower until he scooted towards the table.

Thankfully, he asked no questions. Or he did, but it was a mostly neutral one.

"Nat? Do you know each other?"

It was strange to think that there was so much about him that Bruce didn't know. And a lot about him that Antal didn't know, he reminded himself. This he wouldn't mind telling. He was grinning before he realized it.

"Oh, buddy, let me tell you about what happened in Budapest. It was actually how I met my wife. Ah, young love. It's a thrilling tale, involving the Black Widow, ballet shoes, mutant uprisings, Hawkeyes's love for American country music and my mom's favorite potted petunias..."

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

_1989_

 

 

 

"I can't believe we're gonna move to New York.

His father gave him a scolding look. "Antal, contractions."

"Fine. I cannot believe we are going to move to NY."

Griffith Park was lit up in all shades of red and gold, autumn layering the ground with a carpet that cracked underfoot. Antal stomped on the dried leaves with more force than he probably needed to and more childishly than he should, but he didn't care.

His mother gave Dad a look and tugged them both towards a bench.

Antal sat down with a grumble. Unconsciously his feet started swinging before he noticed and pressed his soles down on the ground. He was too annoyed to be reminiscing about being little and too short for the bench, eating ice cream while squished between his parents.

Damn. Too late. He was reminiscing already.

His mother offered her hand. He leaned back on the bench and relented. His father took the other one without a word.

He was probably way too old to be holding hands with his parents on the park. If any of his older classmates at Berkeley caught him right now he'd never live it down. But he was too tired to care. It had been weeks since he'd slept properly, between end of semester exams and the bus trip back home, only to be told that Mr. Bloody Stark was moving to the East Coast for good and taking his house staff with him.

He didn't want to go, not now, that he had a science bro and was learning so many incredible things in a place he actually liked. Even Aunt Peggy agreed that he was coming into his own. Pasadena had grown on him, the small dorm room with the cracked room had grown on him, he and Rob had dozens of projects and plans here. What was he going to tell Rob? He didn't want to leave him behind, lonely and quiet and angry again.

It wasn't fair.

"Are you even going to be there for the graduation?"

"Of course we are." Anya said. "I made Mr. Stark promise to let us stay until then."

Antal's lips quirked despite his sulking. Ana Jarvis was a true terror when she was out to get something; he doubted Mr. Stark had had much choice.

Also, the idea of Howard Stark alone in his 5th Avenue, New York mansion was both hilarious and worrying. Antal didn't like the man, but it would break his father's heart if his boss fell asleep near the blowtorch and almost set himself on fire

Which had never happened to Antal. Never. There was no evidences left and his parents were never to know. They'd been nervous enough about letting his room in San Francisco as it was, even though he visited every other weekend.

They were more nervous now. His mother's mouth was pursed and his father was holding his hand especially tightly, and Antal hated this, hated the way they were holding him in this bench in the park they had been visiting since he was for born, looking at everything with the intention to remember.

His parents had built a home here. Antal had a hard time imagining them anywhere else, despite the trips they'd taken, actually living in a place without a beach to visit every second Friday and a Griffith Park to visit, a different synagogue and new neighbors. He had lived his whole life in Los Angeles.

And now they were supposed to just leave everything behind because Obidiah Stane said Howard had to spend more time in the New York branch of SI.

"On the plus side," he said, not a little spitefully, "we'll get more visits from Cousin Max."

His father sighed out a quiet "oh joy, and his mother laughed gaily.

"I am sure he could use the company," his mother agreed. Her rouged pulled at the corners, and under the red graying hair framed by the red-gold leaves, her smile was particularly wolfish. They had the same smile, had the Eisenhardts.

Antal puffed out a breath that clouded around his face.

"I'm still not going to MIT," he warned, because that was where Stark wanted him to go.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to. No one will make you."

Antal wasn't so sure about that, but he didn't say anything. He burrowed closer in his scarf and breathed in, letting his mind still the slightest bit.

They stayed in that bench, hips pressed together, watching the dusk turn the brown leaves golden, until the wind turned too cold.

 

Semester wasn't actually over yet. There was still the last week to go, full of last-minute assignments and even more paperwork than before, since he wasn't coming back in January. He was on his third year of a two course track, and there were enough changes and classes to keep an eye on to make him lose patience with the whole thing and think about doing a correspondence course. He wouldn't, of course, but still.

The move was supposed to he completed by the end of December, the New York mansion ready to kickstart with a New Year's party. It meant that, from one day to the next, the Jarvis were in charge of moving a mansion's full of riches and furnishing, without counting their own stuff. Antal ended up spending most of his last weekend at home wrapping glass decanters and boxing the piles of untouched books in the mansion's library. It's bittersweet, sitting at the futon where he and his parent's had spent many afternoons, when Mr. Stark was away and the whole library was open to them.

"Do you remember when we read Ivan Hoe and you spent a week building a sword?" His mother asked, holding out the book.

"I remember that sword," he said sadly. "It was so shiny and pointy."

"You certainly did your best to make it so," his father agreed.

Antal's brief but remarkable career as a foilist had ended up with a stab wound and a ban from further competitions in the country. Antal maintained that there was no actual rule that stopped a participant from providing a better version of the foil, and the protections were really quite flimsy.

He did feel bad about the stabbing, though. May hadn't been pleased but she hadn't been very phased either, even if calculations showed that she'd have won the competition easily. That girl was frankly scary.

He held up a new book and crowed, "oh, the Little Prince! Didn't I set it on fire that one time?"

"I don't know, Anthony. Did you?" His father asked pointedly.

It was nice, the reminiscing. Later he and Happy took off in their bikes, going for the walkway by the shore, the route they had taken together every morning for years because Mr Stark wasn't sharing his many cars and the only chauffeur he had was Mr Jarvis. The ice cream place was still there, with the rickety wood chairs, and the comic book shop they'd gone to after school.

They're at their favorite pizza place when Aunt Peggy shows up with a surprise, and there's a round of ahhs and kisses while Aunt Angie tries to look inconspicuous and like her face wasn't one the front posters of every cinema across of the country. They spend the evening telling stories and laughing, and he even gets to listen to one of Peggy and Angie's rare shared missions about an HYDRA cell smack down in the middle of Hollywood's most golden and powerful. Peggy had gone undercover and Angie had worked as a mole and by the end of it they were crying with laugher and applauding their bold heroines.

It's nice and familiar and theirs, and he has a hard time saying goodbye with the certainty that he isn't coming back for the weekend or the holidays. He tries not to think about Monday, when he'll tale the bus back to Pasadena and tell Bruce he's leaving.

He doesn't want to leave, mostly because it's not his choice and he's nothing if not contrary, but at the same time it's New York. It's hard not to be just a little excited through the reluctance and the nerves.

He supposes that's what growing up is like.

 

 

 

 

_2012_

 

 

 

"Is that a gun? An übergun?"

"A Hydra gun," corrected Rogers. "PHASE TWO is the part where SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons."

Antal swiveled around, opening the folder on the screen. It had appeared right around the tome Rogers came in carrying an assault riffle on steroids. "Exactly the type of thing I'd expect from a file named SECRET FILE PHASE TWO. How imaginative."

No one was paying attention to him. He huffed but took the pause to enjoy the show of Fury being scolded by Captain America.

"Hey, Nick, want to lie a bit more and explain this?" He called out. His thumb was pointing at the file named WEAPONS. Had none of these people heard of encrypted names?

Rogers said something about the world still being the same. The implication that he'd thought it had changed was adorable. He focused on Bruce, though, Bruce who was breathing hard and clenching his fists.

He put a hand on his shoulder. "Bruce?"

Bruce pursed his lips but opened his mouth to answer. Whatever he was going to say was lost when Natasha and Thor walked in, faces grim.

"You might want to consider removing yourself from this environment, Doctor," she said. Antal bristled. Bruce did his version of bristling, the one that involved intense eye contact and a jutted chin. It was more intimidating than when he'd been a teenager, what with extra inches and the threat of the Hulk, but there was no way it was going to work on Nat.

"How about you remove yourself, Romanoff. Geez, let the guy breathe. We got this."

Nat pursed her lips minutely but gave him nothing more than a cursory glance. It added to the anger in his chest. Not only ay her, at his own reaction. He hated being ignored, she knew he hated to be ignored, but those tactics were old hat to him. He was still on his guard from Loki, hard not to be, and took on a defensive stance on Bruce because of that. It was something he'd been working on all his life, his protectiveness and right-down control problems, since he'd been little and started playing statistics for any given situation. Hard not to be anxious when it was mathematically correct anxiety.

Statistically speaking, the odds of this going well were diminishing at a rate of 23% per minute.

  
The Beatles started playing.

Here comes the sun king, here comes the sun king

It was his phono's tone ring for Peter.

"Janós, don't you dare take a private call now, or so help me God you'll never go to the bathroom without pain again."

"Kinky, Fury, but I'll pass. You'll want me to take this, it Peter with information on the Tesseract."

The Director gave him a look. The Fury Look TM, all rage and offense and impatience towards any bullshit. It was a great look, but at this point it had kinda lost its effect on him. "SHIELD has been researching the Tesseract for thirteen months and you think your kid can do better in a day?"

"I know he can." He pointed at all the others and narrowed his eyes, glasses sliding down his nose. Captain America looked dubiously at his finger. "Be nice to my kid or I'll do what Fury threatened to do."

Then he picked up the call and asked cheerfully, "hi Petey, what's up?"

"Are you near the Tesseract?" Peter was demanding even before he'd put the phone on speaker mode,

Antal frowned. "No, but I hear a glowing scepter connected to the Tesseract. Does that count?"

"Stay away from it anyway," his kid said at once. "Don't touch it, don't breathe near it. It's probably better if you don't look at it either, but it shouldn't be left alone. Maybe with a surveillance system-

"How bad is it?" He asked, dreading the answer. "Like, Star Destroyer level of bad or what?"

"Or what," his son quipped, before turning serious. "It has mind control powers. I've found an account by a Finnish monk, back in 1709, in Norway. It was a journal who spoke about how some guy who killed his brother was chased by local guards chased him far enough away into the woods that he found refuge with the monk's at an isolated monastery under a fake name. Turned out, the monks were guarding the Tesseract, and when the guy tried to steal it it took over his mind. He went on a rampage and killed everyone in the monastery before the monk who wrote it down, a young scribe at the time, managed to kill him with a quill to the brain through the eye."

Peter took a deep breath after saying all that.

"Yikes," he said. "That's like the first part of Les Miserables with less singing and more stabbing."

"Hiw the hell do you have this information?" Fury demanded.

"Mm. Who is this?" Peter asked cautiously.

"Petey, meet Dead Pirate Fury, Nat of The Deadly Tights, Captain Steve, Bruce Banner, I told you about him. We're the Avengers, apparently. Guys, this is Petey."

"Please don't call me Petey," he said painfully.

"We won't," Rogers assured, earnestly kind. "This is Steve Rogers, by the way," he added, either because he didn't understand modern phones yet or because he was that nice.

Peter, the only one Jakab told the best stories about the past to, connected the dots admirably fast. "Oh," he gasped. "That Steve. First Edition Captain America Steve Rogers?"

"Yes. Hi," Steve said.

"Mm. Hi back," Peter said. Squealed.

"Sorry not sorry to interrupt your geek out, been there done that, but on to the big bads. What do you got, kid?" He asked

"I've got a contact in Finland checking things out right now," Peter blurted out, which, okay, not a lie and not a bad save either. Antal bad to press his lips together. The 'contact' in question was his old cousin. He knew that because he had sent a postcard of himself sitting on a fjord last month, the asshole. Somehow he didn't think SHIELD would be all that happy that they were getting info from he of the dramatic capes and stupid helmets. He and Loki could talk fashion and world-conquering plots.

Wait, no. That was a terrible idea. He made a mental note never to let Max and Loki near each other ever. On one hand, Magneto hated everyone who wasn't a mutant, with very few exceptions (read: the late Mr and Mrs Janós, Peter, and May Parker, possibly Antal himself, very rarely and only on Sabbaths), and Loki would probably never associate with a weak earthling like him. On the other hand, the potential for a successful evil take over was way too great.

Natasha did that thing with her eyebrows that she did when she wanted people to know that she knew they were lying but would let them sit on their falsities a little while longer.

"So what happened to the Tesseract?" Bruce asked.

"The monks managed to keep it. Went with the story that the massacre was the work of the devil," Peter answered.

"Reasonable conclusion," said Rogers, dry as sand. Desert sand, not beach sand.

 

 

"So, that was illuminating."

What SHIELD tended to forget was that, besides being a teacher, he was also Edwin Jarvis' son. He might not have the best social skills in the world, but he could read people and diffuse situations like nobody's business. He could hear his father saying the words, while they sat at home late at night. Each of them on a stool, Antal helping him polish Mr Stark's shoes and listening to his lessons. His mother had been a practical teacher, showing him how to cook or tie knots or chop off the kitchen's neck for dinner, but Dad had preferred the verbal approach, and he'd been good enough at it that it was interesting for his son.

'These tactics will be very useful to you in time, Anthony, so pay attention. Any good butler must know them, and furthermore know how to put them in practice without the subjects in questions being aware of it. If they do notice, do not bow down or apologize. Even beyond service, I have found them to be exceedingly useful in dealing with all sorts of characters. Especially the ones of a more -- single minded nature.

'Step 1: before anything else, before becoming an involved part of the conflict, evaluate the situation. Put together what you know of the people involved. What are their motives, how are they likely to act? If their behavior seems put of character, In this manner you can predict their actions, which is often useful as a servant as well as to avoid further problem in the future.'

In this case, the superficial survey was easy enough. Antal could already see how this would go. He and Natasha would exchange jabs, Rogers would stop trusting Fury, Fury would become defensive, Thor would say something condescending, and he'd argue with everyone. It was like any squabble between lab mates on the weeks of the semester, when his young arrogant geniuses discovered they weren't in fact the only young arrogant genius in the lab and picked up fights over everything and anything. Usually he could contain things before any lasting damage was done, and often explosions served as bonding experiences.

Surreal as it was, these people were behaving like a suoerpowered version of college students. Rogers had an excuse, he was basically a college student in an extreme version of an exchange program, but the others should know better.

Antal chased that thought a little further. They should know better, there were some of the world's best manipulators in this room. It shouldn't feel like a powder keg ready to blow off in here, or at the very least like there was supposed to be some semblance of control going on. It shouldn't feel like this, like playing chess with Yinsen felt, or trying to have a conversation with a drunk Natasha felt - the faint impression that you were being outplayed and defeated without anything to prove it until long after the fact.

Antal didn't care for chess and he didn't drink anymore. He didn't have much of a taste for losing or being inebriated and being played.

In the corner of his eye the scepter shone brighter, a barely-there mutation in its glow, and he turned around, limbs obeying faster than a decision.

In the corner of his eye the scepter shone brighter, a barely-there mutation in its glow, and he turned around, limbs obeying faster than a decision.

'Step 2: Having completed step one, you are ready to engage. Start by empathizing. A sense of togetherness will facilitate communication and at the very least limit any nascent antagonism. If that means picking sides, don't empathize. Unless your people are in danger. Then partial empathy will do.'

  
"I do not believe you do. Loki is manipulating you."

"If we are going to go that way, I should point out that it's not just you, it's all of us, and it's not Loki. He's probably not even the mastermind here."

Fury turned to him. He was scowling, he usually was, but his face was set in an expression he'd never seen before. The Director might get angry, he might impersonate his name to terrifying results, but he controlled that anger. Considering the situation it wasn't surprising that even he might be fraying at the edges, but the thing was, Fury didn't get frayed. It only bolstered Antal's certainty.

"What do you mean, Janós?"

He pointed at the scepter. "How much, exactly, do we know about brain control? Because it's getting stupidly heated in here. The circumstances aren't great, and no one wants to be here, but damn if we aren't going the wring way about it. I for one know we can do better than this"

'Step 3: Offer support where it deserves to have it. If not, persist with step one.'

"Think about it. Does all this blustering seem normal to you? Or useful? We're kinda in a stalemate here."

"I'm not leaving because you're getting a little twitchy. I don't think I'm the only one wanting to know why SHIELD is creating weapons of mass destruction."

"Not that, Bruce, list--"

"Because of him." Fury said, ignoring him to point at Thor.

Antal blinked. He had spent hours every Wednesday sitting down with his kid on the abandoned bones of a science pavilion, and this conversation was quickly slipping towards nerd debate taken entire too seriously. "You realize there are other sentient races in space and you go all out on weapons?"

"We're ridiculously outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace."

Antal frowned and had to fight the urge to start babbling about First Contact and trade politics, public opinion and the lengths he'd go to get his hands on some Asgardian metal. "Look, I get it, and so do you Thor, don't get all riled up, Asgard wouldn't be happy if it were them. Thor, do you think it's possible, even a little, that the scepter is influencing us? Right now?"

"This scepter is known to me only of this day. Loki did nit have it in his possession when he fell, although it was possible that he already knew of its whereabouts. Ever did he have an interest in such magical artifacts. Its power is connected to the Tesseract, and as seen can be create great damages. Yet I do not know its limits."

He looked at Antal, and he was frowning. There were a lot of thunder analogies there, but it was true that it changed his face into sime grimmer version of itself. He looked more like his mother. "That Loki has snared great and many minds with it, I can believe. It would nit be so odd to consider that it might be twisting our humors, but it is not a possibility I relish."

"Me neither, buddy," he said half-mindedly.

His wife had wanted to control the world. Not control it, that wasn't it, but redesign it, turn into a better version of itself. It had been her greatest desire, her reason for living, and in most people that ambition would be madness but in Mary it had been unquestionable. She had lived for it and loved him because of it and in the end she died for it.

Antal might have forgiven her that sooner if he hadn't been the same way.

Fury stared at the thing, eyes very bright, then scoffed and turned back to them. "And you blame us for trying to use this thing?"

"Take it from someone who knows: you can't control everything. Not SHIELD, not Loki, not this creepy Sailor Moon scepter. We have room for choices and right now it's being influenced by alien brainwaves. So let's calm down and think. For ourselves."

"Yes," Thor said. "For I fear this might be the beginning of something greater. By using the Tesseract you have opened the connection with the scepter, and mayhaps that was what brought Loki here. And if Loki recognizes this power, others will. You have opened yourselves to a higher form of war."

'Step 4: Invoke higher principles. A shared figure of authority is an alternative but risky. This step demands a certain natural high-handedness and a willingness to lead. If not in a position to lead, refer to your chosen leader.'

"Look, I'm only a civilian and all, but I'm with Cap on this. There were better ways to go about dealing with the big beyond, nuclear deterrents aren't it."

"Only a civillian my ass. What's your angle, János?"

"My angle is that my boss, who is also my best friend, who is also a pacifist, is the one human capable of creating a arc reactor weapon of mass destruction. Relevance on human. Loki is, no doubt, capable of creating a weapon as if not more powerful, without having to go to the trouble of kidnapping Yinsen. Even if its Arc Reactor energy he wants, there's nothing secret about it, the formula is on the list of reasons why he won the Noble Prize of Physics. Still, Loki has him. Why?"

"There's an alien on the brig and all you're worried about is your friend?"

"I'm plenty worried about other things, Fury, but can we focus on the problem here?"

"You're the problem. You and Yinsen, destroying the status quo with technology the world isn't ready for. Invisibility fields? Self-powered cities? The end of global warming?"

He knew he shouldn't, but he still bristled at that. He was man enough to admit that had less to do with space sticks and more to do with his pride. "Am I supposed to feel offended? What's my crime here?"

"Do you blame your champions with such disrespect, after what they've done to help your world?"

"Thanks, Thor, but I got this."

"I ought not to have need to."

"This! This is why you're dangerous. Getting friendly with gods, your disregard for orders--"

"Excuse you, I've been following the UN's directives for the last ten years! We've got a system all worked out, a system, may I remind you, that gave rise to a number of protective and adaptive measures towards Inhumans and Mutants. The only orders I'm not following are yours, Fury."

He shook his head and wrinkled his nose. "Are we even listening to ourselves? How much if this hostility is real?"

"You can bet it's real," Fury growled, but at this point they were all a good two feet away from the scepter so Antal wasn't complaining.

  
'Step 5: Promote inter awareness and group effort. Often a common goal will go a long way to unite antagonistic characters in a greater mutual trust. '

"How you you expect us to cooperate like that?" Rogers asked. He looked disquieted at the idea of his mind being controlled, probably remembering one of HYDRA's nastiest tricks.

Antal almost winced. He really had no clue.

"This has nothing to do with you, Cap. I'm all for working with you. I've read your record. Grew up near the best Captain America shrine around, actually. The guy who ditched the news reels and shows to go on a suicide mission to save his best friend, that guy I can work with."

Rogers gave him a long look. Evaluating, the sort Antal had always hated. He stared right back and but back on a dozen comments.

His mother had told him, after a bad first day at school: people take time to get the right impression of each other. It's wonderful when you get along right away, but it's even better when you take time to get to know someone and see if you like then.

It was sad in many ways that this situation was so similar to his first day in middle school. So many ways.

"Is that what you're doing?"

"If that's what I need to do to get Yinsen, yes I am." At least this time there would be no waterboarding. Or so he hoped. That was something he was in no hurry to revisit.

"I can work with that."

"Good."

Bruce cleared his throat. Looking around, he saw that everyone was staring at him and Rogers. The match of egos is over, guys, he thought, amused. "This is the part where one of us notices that the scepter is glowing."

Rogers was back on leader-mode all at once. "What?"

"Nice timing, Robbie-Berry. Look, a ping. That would be the cube. Will you do the honors, Captain?"

"Thor, you with us?"

"Aye."

"Good, because the Tesseract is glowing right about n--"

 

 

Miles above the ground, the quinjet shuddered.

 

  
He hadn't actually let go of his suit. Call him paranoid, but he took the thing everywhere, and usually got away with it too. Who would complain about a middle aged professor carrying around a pretty suitcase? There were always a few papers to be graded he kept around, to continue the pretense, but nobody really bothered to look further than that.

He suited up on the way to Engine Room 3, Cap half a step in front of him. Antal let him. He could deal with Rogers leading, as long as he followed his instructions when it came to the engines.

"Bruce?" He called, because he trusted him to keep Fury's earpiece online, ready to be tossed aside as a distraction or a false trail if it came to that. "You okay?"

"I'm good, he huffed from the other side. It would be more convincing if it didn't sound so much like a growl, but he didnt sound hurt, so Antal really couldn't care less.

"Good. Great, bruises suck, avoid the falling ceiling." Antal was babbling. He knew he was babbling, but babbling worked on Bruce in the 80s, it might work now. He wasn't sure what he would do if it didn't work now. "'Cause I'm all for meeting the Other Guy, I have so many ideas of how we'd have fun, but as mentioned like, five minutes ago, you've pretty good timing. This is not a good timing."

"I'll take into consideration. Romanoff's here. Where are you?"

It was Rogers who answered. "Entering Engine Room 3."

The place was a mess of small explosions. SHIELD techs were trying to contain the spark, sensibly wearing masks. He had the armor, but hopefully Rogers' super serum specialness would keep his lungs safe.

"Don't go offline if possible, Bruce, I might need your help."

"I might need yours, is what you mean," he said wryly, but the earpiece was still on so he counted it as a victory.

The helmet's screen was lit up and running fast. The cooling system was dead, the rotors were shit without it, and there was debris everywhere. He and the captain got to work. Rogers had an appalling knowledge of modern technology, SHIELS had failed they guy. He suspected in more than that. It was a good thing he was used to teaching amateurs how not to blow up something majorly.

He was elbows deep into the reactors, getting feedback from Rogers by the monitors and tossing back question's, when he looked up.

"Uh," he wondered, partly to Bruce and partly to Rogers and mostly to himself, "you know, this reminds me if Afghanistan."

He could only hope Yinsen was having a better time with the memories than than him.

 

 

  
_1991_

 

(The wind had not changed in a fortnight.

It did not make it easy for the prisoner to count the time. It howled endlessly, scouring sand against the tall cliffs, the metal openings that covered their caves. Some of it escaped inside in sibilant sighs.

It was almost enough to hide the screams.

"Fuck, szar, let me-- ahh-- go --asshat face, you baromarcú faszfe. Let me -- ahhh -- down!"

The door to the prisoner's cell, that was in truth something of a decrepit garage, was opened. The prisoner looked up from his work slowly. Let them not see his hands tremble, let them not think him too afraid, or too little.

His warden, the nephew of the leader among his captors, walked in. There was blood falling from his nose. Behind him came three of his men -two to hold a struggling captive, another armed in the vanguard. The wounded man grunted and screamed. Blood, dark and fast, fell from his mangled chest.

The nephew of the powerful man did not answer, though his face contorted in fury. He turned to the prisoner. "This one is our prisoner. His health is in your hands. If he dies you die."

"What bullshit threat is that?" the new captive asked through gritted teeth. One of the men holding him jostled him and threw him to the floor. He gave a strangled cry, and stayed down.

The prisoner nodded at the warden. One of the men tossed a first aid kit to the ground without bothered to look down, scattering bolts all over the grimy stone floor.

The prisoner moved to the side of the wounded man long before the door closed and their footsteps had been swallowed by the silence and the sand. His hands opened the kit, assessed the wound.

"This is the part where you make a Star Wars joke," the new prisoner said. His eyes were red and feverish with adrenaline. The space above his heart was a red mangled horror, and he was doing an impressive imitation of a dying person. "Just saying."

And he fainted.

Ho Yinsen rolled his eyes and went to get the car battery. He might have muttered 'typical' or 'thank you', but there was nothing but the sand to hear his whispers, and the sand told no one.)

 

Later, the prisoners spoke. Holes in chests still bleeding, but filled with cold stuff, thin tendrils to keep them alive. They were not so different, as most people are not, in dark cold caves. And they were friends, comrades, after a fashion. So, in time, words spilled free and aching between them.

"What happened?"

"They came for my village. They had been attacking for months, you know, but this time there was no retreat. They came to my house, to the house of every Markless. Aatifa was upstairs with the children. When they broke down the lab, in the basement, they were already--"

"Shit. Shit, Ho. I'm sorry."

"So am I. So very much."

 

"Do they want to build weapons as well?"

"Yes. Missiles, mostly. They seem ti have the material already."

"Of course they do. Of course. Stane, that fucker."

"Does the fucker Stane have anything to do with your presence?"

"Ah, ugh! Fuck. Don't make me laugh, this is awful. Yes. He's Stark's right hand man, the guy who's been dealing weapons under the table to fucking terrorists. And, and this is conjecture, the one who sent a patriotic icon of a sniper after Stark."

"You should start from the beginning."

"Alright, well. This is crazy, so crazy, but much do you know about Captain America's best friend?")

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are the author's lifeblood.


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